


For Reasons Wretched & Divine

by HenryMercury



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (or will they), Age Adjustments, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Background Relationships, Bolin/Opal - Freeform, But in a serious way, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Denial of Feelings, F/F, Manipulation, POV Multiple, Past Ty Lee/Azula, Political Marriage, Slow Burn, The strongest couple in the entire world, They will dominate the earth, They're all young adults so we're clear, Timeline Crossover, Unreliable Narration, korra/asami - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 19:47:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 92,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4718315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenryMercury/pseuds/HenryMercury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Ozai's defeat, the Fire Nation and the Earth Empire clash over the remaining colonies. Desperate to avoid another all-out war, Zuko accepts Kuvira's unorthodox proposal for an alliance. The Great Uniter's motives, however, remain very questionable. Zuko needs all the help he can get—and Azula is willing to provide it.</p><p>Timeline crossover.</p><p>DISCONTINUED</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a little crack story; the solution to the hypothetical question of whether I could get my two most problematic favs together somehow. As I should probably have anticipated, things got completely out of control and now it is a big crack story. So tag along for this descent into madness if you're game. 
> 
> Consider all Last Airbender characters aged up by about five years, and all Legend Of Korra characters as they are in Book 4.

**PART ONE**  
**Good Graces**

 

“There’s a letter here for you,” says Mai, who is sitting at Zuko’s desk while he removes his robes. The Fire Lord’s outer garments are heavy, and his hands are wearily slow. He wishes he could order them to move faster; it’s clear that Mai is bored of waiting.

“You can open it,” he offers. “If you want.”

Mai slips a blade from the draping mouth of her left sleeve and slices through the ribbon and seal on the message.

“It’s from Kuvira,” Mai says. She sounds less bored now. She doesn’t elaborate, though, just squints more and more narrowly at the page.

“What does she want this time?” Zuko sighs, finally down to his underthings. He debates collapsing straight into bed, but decides it’s best he goes and stands by Mai. She’s been unhappy with him since he became the Fire Lord. It’s been hard to find the time to focus on her.

He rests his hands on her shoulders. They feel more tense than usual.

“She wants to marry you,” Mai answers his question.

Zuko is quiet for a long moment. At least, the moment certainly _feels_ long. The looming presence of the so-called Great Uniter has been one of the heaviest weights on him ever since he took up the Fire Nation crown. Kuvira had been something of an ally at first, to Aang and his friends and therefore to Zuko as well—but since Ozai’s defeat she’s been demanding the immediate return of every inch of every Fire Nation colony, as though he could just give all that land over to her without any complications.

With the Dai Li, the armies of Ba Sing Se and whatever forces the Earth Kingdom’s other scattered states still possess behind her, Kuvira makes herself very difficult to disagree with.  

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Mai says. “I may not be royalty, but I still grew up in a family of politicians. You know I can help.”

“A week ago she was threatening to march into Yu Dao, and set her navy on a course for the Fire Nation. Now she wants...”

“An alliance,” Mai finishes, in more clinical terms than Zuko had been planning to use. “A very bold one, too. Matching your siblings or cousins with one another would be a typical move, but since I can’t see her giving up her empire to come and live here, I can only imagine her plans are bigger than a token wedding.”

Zuko picks the letter up from the desk now that Mai has set it down.

“She’s prepared to consider the colonies shared territory between the Fire Nation and the Earth Empire,” he comments as he reads. Mai snorts softly and he remembers that, of course, she already knows this. "It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?”

“It sure sounds better than getting the Fire Nation into another war just after ending the last one,” Mai says. She wanders over to the bed and seats herself there. Zuko wants to join her, wants to peel off her heavy robes and set her hair free from its knots. He’s just not sure that a conversation about the benefits of his potentially marrying another woman is the right kind of lead-in for that. He doubts it.

“Politically, I mean,” Mai qualifies. “Personally, I wouldn’t mind another war. The kind of apologetic diplomacy we've been conducting is so dull.”

“Say I did accept this proposal,” Zuko says, rubbing his temple. “Hypothetically. Not that I _want_ to accept it, but just imagine—”

“—I _get_ it, Zuko, just get to the point—”

“How possible is it that she’ll kill me and take the Fire Nation for herself?”

Mai is picking at her nails with the corner of a shuriken. Zuko would be worried she’d injure herself if he didn’t know better (she had taught him better. It had hurt).

“I don’t know that she’d kill you. She might have someone else do it; plenty of angry citizens are baying for your blood right now, _Fire Lord_.”

“But you do think she wants the throne?”

Mai looks at him, waits until she’s holding his eyes before she says, “I think that woman wants the world. And I hate to admit it but you may have to keep this enemy closer than your friends. I think if you don't at least _try_ and investigate this proposal, Kuvira's forces will leave the Fire Nation knee deep in bodies and _you_ neck deep in your own regret. It won't be her the world blames for a new war, even if she's the one that starts it.”

He sends a letter back to Kuvira; they will meet and discuss terms.

 

 

Zuko knows that being the Fire Lord means he’s married to his nation. He knows it means he won’t always—won’t _often_ —get what he wants for himself. He’d just hoped that those things could be true and still not stop him from marrying Mai someday, if she ever went long enough without getting mad and dumping him to agree to marriage. Sure, they’ve been on and off lately, turbulent just like everything else in Zuko’s life, but that’s exactly how they were as teenagers and as kids, too. Through banishment and betrayal, Mai has always been there to take him back, but marrying someone else would put all that to an abrupt end. Zuko doesn’t want some empress of earth because he already has a rock.

He mulls all this over as he, Mai, and an escort of firebending guards set off in an airship destined for Yu Dao.

“You’re going to have to stop brooding before we arrive,” Mai's mouth twitches in amusement at his frown. “You look like you’ve lost your honour again.”

It’s a good way to make him lighten up. Zuko doesn’t want to be the person he was in exile, before he found his true path; his body reacts viscerally to the idea, so insistent on defying the comparison that it feels ready to purge itself in a fever the way it had in Ba Sing Se all that time ago.

“Don’t—” he starts.

“—tell that joke in front of any world leaders, I know. I’m actually _not_ an idiot.”

Yu Dao is a patchwork of dusty streets and small buildings, and Zuko almost misses the days when he would have blended in there as a poor traveller. He laughs to think of how he'd spent those months and years of wandering wishing he could be what he is now—recognised as Fire Nation royalty, wielding the power of his birthright. Wielding the power of a king, he knows now, is less about being fed delicacies and more about pretending they don't turn to ash in one's mouth for as long as one has an audience. The Fire Nation crown is a small, thin slice of gold, no weightier than a small knife, and yet his neck aches and strains under it.

Authority is something Kuvira wears well, wields well, and Zuko earnestly wishes he could ask her how she does it.

The flight is at once too long and not nearly long enough.

Zuko arrives, feeling only mildly airsick, and they sit down for their discussion in a small restaurant. Kuvira orders them tea, which is brought over swiftly. She takes hold of the pot, pouring one cup for herself and one for Zuko. Mai remains at the table anyway, somewhat pointedly; she is Zuko's trusted advisor, even in the increasingly possible event that she never becomes his wife.

Kuvira sips her own drink and then Zuko follows suit. It's an Earth Kingdom tea he recognises from his time at the Jasmine Dragon in Ba Sing Se. It's brewed far too strong, but he schools the distaste out of his expression as best he can.

"Thank you for meeting with me this morning," Kuvira begins. Her voice is deep and hard, a tone that sounds like it should be commanding an army, not conducting a conversation at close quarters. It makes it clear that this is a negotiation, a military conquest of its own sort. Zuko wonders absently whether Kuvira would even wear a gown at their wedding, or whether she'd wear her long green jacket with its pointed coattails, and her blunt-toed boots. Would she keep the strips of metal strapped to her shoulders and her back? He leaps off the train of thought as quickly as possible.

"It's my honour," he says civilly. His mouth tastes bitter—from the tea leaves, but maybe from something else as well. "Any step towards peace and reconciliation is one I'll pursue."

"You've considered my proposal, then."

"In terms as general as those it was set down in. Obviously there are a lot of details that will need to be ironed out."

Kuvira stretches the fingers of one grey-gloved hand as though working them against the cold. It isn't cold in Yu Dao at this time of year. At the movement, one of her shoulder plates jumps an inch or so into the air, elongates into something like a hiltless knife, and then returns to its place as Kuvira's hand returns to rest.

"I trust you'll find that ironing things out is a specialty of mine," she says, nearly nonchalant, as though the display of metalbending has happened unbeknownst to her.

Zuko's only ever seen Toph Beifong metalbend until now. He's known, however, that since she invented the technique she's been taking students, and that there have been reports of other powerful earthbenders across the world developing metalbending for themselves once they knew it to be possible. Kuvira was a guard in the household of one of Toph's students, Suyin, but she honed her technique alone during her presidence over Ba Sing Se and the gradual unification of her Earth Empire. Her metalbending, then, is sure to be better adapted to violence than anything else.

The twitch at the corner of her mouth says she reads his thoughts, or at least sees some measure of intimidation at work on him.

"I know your reputation," Zuko replies. "But ironing out diplomatic arrangements can't be done as heavy-handedly as bringing down cities."

Kuvira's eyes darken under their thick brows. "You know full well my coup at Ba Sing Se was _surgical_. No _drilling through the walls_ ," her bite at Azula doesn't affect Zuko. "No burning through homes on my way to the palace doors. No clash of armies. I secured the loyalty of the necessary personnel and stepped up to lead a city and a nation in sore need of a real leader. If my successes thus far appear heavy-handed to you, perhaps you should learn to watch more closely."

Zuko has been working on not letting his anger burst out of him, on keeping what he's come to think of as his _verbal firebending_ in check. Mai has been an excellent tutor in that regard; she is so measured that Zuko has spent an awful lot of his life wondering if Mai feels anything at all.

After emptying his cup of tea—the awful taste of which proves to be a helpful distraction now—he moves the conversation back to where it really belongs.

"The consequences of a union between you and I would change the face of the four nations," he says.

Whenever he's thought in any depth about producing heirs, they've had Mai's shiny topknots or her narrow, sharp-edged stare. But to marry Kuvira would mean to combine the Fire Nation's royal line with earthbending blood. Zuko can't picture how their families could be united without the fire and earth nations doing the same. 

"These are times of upheaval. Change is necessary. _Evolution_ is necessary. I believe that if our nations are to recover from this war, then we need to recognise that we are reliant upon each other. What better way than to swallow some of our national pride and make ourselves truly inseparable?"

From any other mouth Zuko might find the rhetoric of such statements nauseating, disingenuous. But whether or not Kuvira _means_ what she says, she has a way of making it sound attractive.

"Just weeks ago you were pushing for the people of the Fire Nation to be evicted from their homes in the colonies," he points out. "That sounds like greater separation to me."

Kuvira pours more tea for herself.

"And you made it clear that thatwas not going to happen. I don't want to put my people through another war. I'm simply putting forward a new idea I believe you would have suggested yourself if you'd put any real effort into reaching a compromise."

Zuko, who has slept even less since the end of the war than he did during his harrowing time in exile, will not be told what he has and has not put effort into.

He stands, pushing his chair out violently, letting Kuvira's judgment fan the flames inside him too high.

She is smiling at his outburst before he even gets any words out. The expression is nothing like happiness, though; her brows are furrowed, her eyes narrow as a snake's, her teeth bared. Satisfaction, but not happiness. Upon seeing it, he finds he has no words to say after all.

He stays standing, feeling like it would be silly just to sit back down right away. He looks to Mai, who is still sitting silently at the side of the table. She just blinks at him, like she's waiting for him to do something useful, and he once again remembers his purpose.

"It's past time for the Fire Nation to swallow its pride," says Kuvira. "I am prepared to do my part, for my nation. I believe that we can share the remaining resources of both the Fire Nation and the Earth Empire to achieve prosperity after all the damage this war has done. And I believe that togetherness is a better way to make social amends than the war which will almost certainly break out if you refuse."

A threat, then. At least this Zuko knows how to interpret.

"Forgive me if I'm not convinced we would be well-matched, or that your intentions are genuine."

"Fire Lord Zuko, you and I are the leaders of the two most powerful empires in the world. We are both powerful benders, and we have both risen above hardship to get to where we are. We have more in common than many a husband and wife."

The empty tea cups and pot are taken away by the restaurant's owner. He asks whether they will require a new pot, but Kuvira waves him away.

"I think we're almost done here," she says with a confidence Zuko doesn't share. She turns back to him. "As for my intentions, I don't think you're in a position to ask for perfection, or to wait around and find out if you could ever like me. My people will be given the chance to rebuild, and if I have to spill both my blood and yours into the dirt to ensure it then I won't hesitate. Because I am generous, I will offer you a grace period of one month. Allow me to stay in your capital. Dine with me, train with me, subject me to whatever interrogations you see fit. Oversee wedding plans with me—and once that month is over, declare war on the Earth Empire if you don't think you can stand me under your roof any longer."

Zuko is beginning to feel horribly out of place, still standing beside the table. He doubts that very much of his discomfort would be alleviated by the simple act of sitting down, though. Not unless he was sitting down at a different table, in entirely different company, and none of this was happening at all.

He glances at Mai again, who offers him a small terse nod, confirming what Zuko already knows.

"Fine," he says. "I will arrange lodgings for you at the palace starting immediately. And I will accept your proposal—to be reassessed at the end of the month."

"Good," says Kuvira. "I will arrive tonight."

Zuko reaches for Mai's hand to help her out of her chair, a small gesture of affection that he's suddenly not sure he'll ever be allowed again. Usually, she takes his hand with a huff of indignation—under which, he knows, there is affection buried deep. This time she just looks at him with a flicker of sadness, and the reality of what Zuko's just agreed to finally sinks in.


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as she and Zuko arrive back at the palace, Mai goes for a walk. Zuko clearly wants to join her, but he has too many preparations to see to now that Kuvira is arriving in mere hours. She doesn't want his accompaniment on this walk, though. She takes her own personal guard before Zuko can assign her someone different, because she knows that Izize will do as she says instead of never letting Mai out of her sight, adhering overzealously to the Fire Lord's instructions.

She and Izize stroll silently through the royal gardens for several minutes as the dusk seeps into the air like dispersing ink. Mai looks at the turtle ducks in the fountain and remembers being pushed into that water by Zuko as a child. Remembers blushing, and imagining what it might be like if he could be hers. She wonders whether today would have been easier if she'd never had the chance to find out.

Once Mai reaches the far edge of the garden, she slips behind a hedge and down a set of stone stairs. She has stood at the top of them many times in recent months but never descended. She does, this time, and the guards swing door after door open for her until she's buried far under the palace at the centre of a stone labyrinth.

She stops in front of one of the largest cells, looks down at the figure lying like a bundle of disconnected human pieces on the hard floor. The figure moves, ever so slightly, and matted black hair parts to reveal eyes swollen and shadowed with a madness born of every kind of torture. Azula does not speak; she cannot, through the metal gag across her mouth. Mai signals for one of the guards to remove it. He looks hesitant, understandably, but Mai hopes Azula will be desperate enough for the gag to be removed that she won't spit flames in his face as he unbolts it.

Her hopes come to fruition, and although the Princess does snarl and snort smoke until the guard makes a hasty retreat, she doesn't burn him. The skin over her jaw, where the metal had rubbed against bone, looks red and raw even in the low light of the dungeon. Azula's lips are dry and cracked. She flexes her jaw, yawns and the cracks bleed. Mai wonders how often they can possibly be feeding her. Under the rags she wears, much of Azula's muscle has gone to waste. Her bones jut out so far she mustn't be able to find a single comfortable position on the floor.

Mai recalls that struggle from her time at the Boiling Rock.

"Mai," Azula says simply. Too simply. Mai can't tell what meaning is supposed to be injected into the word.

"Azula," she mirrors.

"You look well," the Princess sneers.

"Thanks. You look terrible."

"And whose fault is that?"

Mai thinks about it, and can trace blame back to almost anyone she knows. It is easier to trace back to herself than to most others, however. Looking at her friend—her proudest, strongest and most beautiful friend—now wretched and emaciated, she has to picture all the carnage Azula could have caused if Mai had stayed on her side. She pictures Zuko in the state of other Agni Kai losers she's seen; charred from head to toe, finally done screaming, a smoking corpse going slowly cold. Yes, her actions at the Boiling Rock were necessary.

Her actions now are necessary too.

"Kuvira is coming to the palace," she explains.

Azula laughs, a cold bark of something that isn't really amusement. "Is she marching in with her armies, or has Zuzu invited the dictator of the Earth Nation to tea in his own home?"

"And then some. They're getting married."

Azula stares. Chains clank as she shifts her feet, pulling herself up to stand and face Mai. The process is hard to watch when her ankles are so thin and so weighted with crude chunks of metal, and her arms are strapped down across her chest. She looks very precarious.

" _Who's_ getting married, Mai?"

"Zuko and Kuvira."

Azula's laugh now is like mangled barbed wire, but Mai hardly blames her for responding to this information with madness. She's on the brink of manic laughter herself. After that laughter would come tears, though, and Mai is not prepared to shed tears over this. She's always preferred to work through sadness by making someone else cry.

"You need my help," Azula surmises once her cackling subsides. "Making sure Zuzu is safe, and Kuvira doesn't take the Fire Nation like a more glorious sequel to her victory over Ba Sing Se."

Mai nods.

"I want you to know that for almost any other favour I'd have you begging and I'd still refuse, after your betrayal," Azula's hollow eyes meet Mai's head on and the gold in them glints. "But that overreaching peasant stole the chance to finally conquer Ba Sing Se from me, and I will take her head before she takes _my_ city too. I don't suppose Zuzu knows you've come to see me?"

"No. But I'll talk to him about getting you out of here as soon as I get back."

"He won't like it."

"There are things he dislikes even more bearing down on him now. He doesn't know how to meet Kuvira in the kind of combat she's challenged him to—but you speak the languages of manipulation better than anyone, Azula. I don't think you're crazy, like some kind of rabid shirshu—and I'm pretty sure I can get you _one_ chance to prove it if you'll scout for Zuko and I; watch Kuvira; get under her skin."

"You still love Zuko more than you fear me," Azula mutters darkly.

"And tonight," says Mai, "that works in your favour."

 

ϟ

 

Azula doesn't know how long she waits before Mai returns, this time with a guard to escort Azula from her cell. It is both no time at all and the longest wait ever, thanks to her anticipation. She's lost track of time down here; she hadn't been in a state to try and count when they'd first locked her away, and even once her mania had burned out there'd been no daylight to rely upon, no consistency in the watches or the meals. Sleep has been erratic. Still, she appreciates that the visions have been relegated to the realms of sleep, unlike the first torturous stretch of her incarceration.  

The palace wing that Mai gives her is not the one she had inhabited before; it is smaller, further from the centre of the palace, less connected to the main areas. It has a view of one of the outer gardens, which is currently alight with red flowers, even in the darkness of early nightfall.

It is the residence of someone lower in the order of things than Azula considers herself—but it is closer to the top than a concrete box, a living grave, many feet under the ground. Burial is not the custom in the Fire Nation; she would have been better off killed in battle, burned, turned to ash and scattered over a flaming, bloodied field. Now, at least, she'll have the chance to step outside and feel the sun on her skin again. It is not too late to die a better death.

The servants who attend to Azula hide their fear poorly, which she enjoys. She bathes, for the first time in so long that she is surely still rinsing the charring of her Agni Kai with Zuko from her skin. She rubs herself raw with pumice and soaps, goes through so much water that the servants grow tired from fetching it for her. She scrapes dirt and blood from under her nails, brittle and twisted as they are. She trims and files away the ends. Before they'd bound her arms across her chest, she'd scraped them across the stone floor in her hysteria, the tips bending, cracking, bleeding. It is what people do when they are buried alive.

She sends for red varnish to both reinforce and disguise the nails, and the servant who applies it does so with shaking hands. Azula would do it herself, but her own hands are no steadier. She remembers being able to shoot fire with precision at a moving target well out of most weapons' rage. That girl, that prodigy, cannot be reconciled with the wasted thing Azula is at present.

She sends for powders, to be applied where her gag rubbed the skin of her face. She sees to it that she is brought lip stain, even though it sinks unevenly into the broken skin.

She is presented with one of her old robes, a formal, very feminine thing she rarely wore. It looks ugly when she dons it, sagging loosely over her bones, but the whispering sensation of the silk nearly brings her to tears.

"The Fire Lord requests that you take tea with him shortly, Princess," one of her servants informs her as she returns with another outfit, a set of pants and a shirt with the tight arm cuffs Azula has always preferred. The new clothes are more sparring attire than respectable dinner dress, but they fit her better than the silk gown, relying less on the curves of her body to give them shape.

"Fine," she nods to the servant. "Tell Zuzu to meet me here. You can serve us our tea in the garden," she gestures to the window, the red flower beds. "Have someone light the lanterns for us."

She'll need to see Zuko sooner or later if she's going to keep tabs on whatever mess Zuzu's ended up in with Kuvira. Now, at least, he's less likely to lord his wartime victory over her. Azula spent her whole life preparing herself for the role of Fire Lord in all its difficulty. Zuko spent years wandering and imagining himself on the throne, imagining that his suffering would _end_ once he got there. Azula knows better; suffering cannot be ended or removed, it can only be owned, taken in stride. Pain must be channelled and made useful.

She has her eyebrows plucked back into sharp points, has oils rubbed into her hair and the knots painstakingly combed out. She has the frayed ends cut away and what remains pulled back, including what she would ordinarily leave hanging at the front. The hair is too thin, too unhealthy, for it to look quite right worn that way.

Her brother is waiting for her out in the garden when she arrives—several minutes late, because she doesn't care if Kuvira's due at the palace imminently; Zuko can wait for her, just like she waited for him to come back and visit her in the dungeon. He came a total of three times before the visits stopped.

He looks at her like he's seeing a ghost. It's almost hilarious, considering all the ghosts she'd been seeing during his last visit.

"Hello Zuzu," she says, looking down her nose at him as she slides into the seat opposite him.

"Azula," he says, eyes still wide.

She waits for him to continue. Raises an eyebrow quizzically. "So I hear you're going to be married. I'd offer my congratulations, but..."

Zuko sighs heavily. He looks weary. She has no sympathy for him in that regard.

"It's this marriage or another war," he grumbles.

Azula shrugs. "So fight another war. People have spilled more blood over less pride."

That lights the righteous fire in his eyes that Azula's been waiting for.

"I refuse to make the damage Father did any worse. It's the responsibility of the Fire Nation to help make amends now. It _is_ the Fire Nation's actions that have put us in this position. I won't uproot the people who have made their lives in colonies like Yu Dao, but I also can't expect the Earth Empire to just cede land that Sozin, Azulon or Ozai took."

One word catches Azula's attention in his ramblings. "The Earth Empire?" she asks. "I'm certain that's not what it's been called in the past."

Kuvira has clearly become more brazen since Azula had met her in Ba Sing Se, already sitting on the throne that Azula had planned to take from Kuei. She'd known enough about the Kyoshi warriors that she'd become suspicious, and had held the Dai Li's loyalties firmly enough that Azula had been forced to cut her losses and leave the city before she, Mai and Ty Lee could be captured or injured. She'd returned from that expedition with the blood of the Avatar on her hands, and while that had been achievement enough for her to avoid punishment from Ozai, the disappointment had still stung. Azula has no doubt that she'd have been able to take the city. Kuvira had robbed her of her greatest glory.

"It sounds rather... militaristic," she muses. "Empire. Empress Kuvira. I suppose I can see how it might suit her."

Kuvira had sat on the throne as though she had marched through mud to get there. For Azula, power has always been about effortlessness. About looking like there's no way she could possibly _be_ besides powerful. Power is a part of her like her flesh is, like her bones are.

Kuvira's power had not been in her bones. Kuvira's power had looked heavy, and her strength had come from the way she refused to put the burden down regardless. It was an oversized sword that she refused to lower, an outward thing that those watching her had eventually to admit they could not wield with comparable endurance and strength.

Azula does not wield a sword; she is a sword. Still, looking at Kuvira on the Earth Kingdom throne she could not help but be a little impressed by the way the low-born woman had built her danger into herself. What started out as a mask must be melting down into her face by now. Perhaps it could become bone, even if it did not begin that way.

"I always forget that you met her," Zuko says. One of the servants brings them tea and biscuits.

"While you were busy making tea with Iroh. Yes, I was busy gathering knowledge that will be of use to you."

"You'll help us figure out what she really wants out of all this, then?"

Zuzu looks so hopeful as he pours tea for both of them. Azula takes a biscuit. She has no appetite to speak of anymore but she knows she is hungry. She must eat if she's going to fit into any of her clothes again, if she's going to have the strength to start training and firebending again. Its spices burn her tongue after the bland (and altogether too occasional) prison meals, and its hard texture makes her teeth ache but she chews, swallows and takes another right away. If eating biscuits has become a challenge, then Azula has too much rebuilding to do to be in any position to shrink from pain.

"I'll help," she tells her brother. "I'm as interested in discovering what her designs are as you are interested in not falling prey to them. I do also expect that I'll be given some freedoms in return for my assistance."

Zuko nods. "You'll have your servants, your wing, access to the adjoining gardens. You can use the training facilities when they're not otherwise occupied, but you can't order people to spar with you against their will. Volunteers only. There will be guards stationed around these areas that, on my orders, won't listen when you dismiss them. Please don't kill them. And if you leave the palace, it won't be without a guard."

A servant is approaching them, and Zuko stops to listen as she relays a message.

"My Lord, My Lady," she says, bowing to them both, "the Great Uniter has arrived."

Zuko looks like a rabaroo caught in the path of a charging sabre-toothed moose-lion. Azula swears she can see a green tinge rising in his unscarred cheek.  

"Then I suppose I'll take my leave," she tells him, enjoying his reluctant floundering. "You'd best go and receive your fiancée, Fire Lord."

Zuko makes a noise like a frustrated ostrich-horse. For the first time in many long months, Azula laughs with actual amusement.


	3. Chapter 3

It's very warm in this part of the world—a sticky, heavy warmth unlike the dry heat in parts of the Earth Empire. The closer Kuvira's journeys have brought her to the Fire Nation capital, the more she's wanted to shed her sturdy jacket and all its armouring. Here on the steps of the palace, the thick layers of fabric are intolerable; it feels like she's close to sweating all the way through them. She's brought lighter clothing with her that will be more comfortable to wear during the course of her stay, but the jacket cuts a sharper, more commanding silhouette than anything else she owns, so she has chosen it for her entrance.

The Fire Lord greets her with guards by his side and a look that says she's the last thing he wants to lay eyes on. He meets her outside the entrance of the palace as her few pieces of luggage are unloaded from her airship. At least he hasn't made her approach him for a greeting while he sits on his throne, behind walls of fire. Kuvira's read about the throne room of the Fire Lords and she's more than curious to actually see it—but not from the receiving end of such a display of intimidation. She steels herself.

"Fire Lord," she nods in acknowledgement but does not bow.

"You might as well call me by my name if we're going to be married," he says irritably. "Zuko will do."

It's far less formality than should be appropriate, but Kuvira's not about to hand back liberties she's been invited to take.

"Zuko," she amends. "It seems only fair then that you address me as Kuvira."

"Come inside and you'll be shown to your rooms."

 

 

Kuvira's rooms are spacious and draped in rich silks and velvets, all red and burgundy trimmed with gold. She feels entirely out of place in her green and silver, but she wants to keep it on her all the same. She has not come here to assimilate, but to represent the interests of her people as insistently as possible. A whisper in the ear can be louder than a war cry, and she has already done enough shouting to know that the latter won't work. Zuko won't hand back the colonies because he cannot bear to uproot a few Fire Nation citizens—citizens who, for the most part, continue to take social and economic advantage of the Earth Empire people their predecessors subjugated.  

Kuvira's objective is clear; the Fire Lord will be convinced, or he will have to be uprooted himself.

She has the palace servants leave her bags in one corner of her expansive bedroom and is then finally alone. Immediately, she strips her jacket off, lays it out over the studded cushioning of the futon which furnishes the far wall, and collapses onto the four poster bed face first. The sheets are foreign-smelling but they are wonderfully clean and soft.

She'd requested a few moments to herself before dinner, and Zuko had promised to give her a tour of the palace after they ate. She finds that she honestly looks forward to seeing it all. Its obvious lavishness angers her the way Ba Sing Se's rigid class divisions always have, but its beauty nonetheless begs her to soak in it. She pulls herself up off the bed and goes to the window, draws back the silken curtains and ties them open with their gold tasselled cords.

It's dark, but lanterns illuminate some of the garden that lies outside. The radiance of golden flames passes through red paper and falls upon beds of flowers that might be either crimson or orange. A path leads around the garden beds to a small pagoda that looks sure to be a nice sitting place during the day. Behind it, another wing of the palace closes off this section of the garden, frames it as a rectangle.

It occurs to Kuvira just how many walls, how many guarded doors, stand between her and the world outside this place. She reminds herself that she deliberately procured her invitation here. The walls are no different from the even greater ones in Ba Sing Se. Except that there, she'd had allies to surround her as she worked. She hadn't been in her home city, but now she's not even in her own nation _._

She reaches out for the metal plates of her jacket, summons one of them to her and holds it, bending it in and out of shape methodically. The bending of metal had been such a miraculous thing to learn, such a pure thing, and her love for the sensation of it is perhaps the one love Kuvira has not managed to ruin yet.

She wishes that politics and the bending of the human will were as simple, as clean, or as beautiful.

 

 

She dresses for dinner in a silk robe she had made in the Fire Nation style, but dyed a light forest green. It leaves most of her shoulders bare, so she keeps her hair down, except for a few side strands pulled to the back and pinned there. A servant collects her and they make the long walk from Kuvira's residence to a large dining hall. The corridors on the way are a low-lit labyrinth, with rich carpet rolled out over the floors and tapestries varying in age and quality hanging on the walls. Some depict stories; many feature dragons—flying, hunting, killing, being killed. They breathe colours of flame that Kuvira is not convinced actually exist. She follows her guide with care, making sure she doesn't trip on the carpet in her pointed shoes.

She is somewhat relieved to find that dinner is not an intimate affair between herself and the Fire Lord. After a great deal of travel she's grown tired, and while she doesn't doubt her well-practiced ability to play and win the game while her energy is depleted, she'll always prefer to wait until she's properly on her toes to talk business. More diners, she hopes, will make for more small talk and less pressure.

Zuko sits at the head of the long table. The dining room is not quite as dark as the corridors, but it's still only lit by a fireplace in the far wall and flaming lanterns glaring out from the others. The light casts shadows across the Fire Lord's face. For a moment, his left side is all in shadow, and Kuvira is struck by how different he would look without his scar. Handsome, in that waxen Fire Nation way, but alien.

Kuvira is seated at one of Zuko's hands. She almost doesn't recognise the woman sitting at the other; her skin looks like thin paper stretched over bones so slender they could be a bird's. Her hair is black and looks well-oiled but not smooth. Her eyes retreat into the caverns of their sockets.

"Princess Azula," says Kuvira.

"It's been a while," Azula replies, unabashedly looking her up and down. Her gaze is still the cold, assessing force that had borne into Kuvira from behind the mask of a Kyoshi warrior in Ba Sing Se. As far as Kuvira can see, it isn't even tinged with the madness she'd heard had consumed the Princess by the time Sozin's comet arrived. She looks like her former self, just in a body far too small to match her ambition.

"Evidently it has."

"So I hear you're going by _Great Uniter_ , now," Azula continues with a scowl.

"And I'm not sure quite what to make of what I've heard about _you_."

"If it's put any fear in your heart, then I assure you it's true."

"In my heart?" Kuvira smirks. "You know, it's been a while since anyone's presumed I have one of those."

"I told you it was a bad idea to seat them anywhere near each other," Mai's bored drawl interrupts, directed at Zuko from the seat at Kuvira's other side. She suspects that she has taken Mai's regular seat tonight. Azula doesn't seem to pay her friend—former friend?—any mind, so Kuvira doesn't either.

Further down the table, Katara is arguing with another young woman with the bright blue eyes and dark skin of the Water Tribe. It's been some time since Kuvira saw Katara; they had been allied against the Fire Nation for long enough that they'd been something like friends, although Kuvira hadn't been a part of the Avatar's inner circle. She'd been on the Earth Kingdom throne, able to lend her nation's forces to the war effort and _act_ to defend its people against Ozai when Kuei was too ignorant and Long Feng was only focused on his hold over a single city.

The more Kuvira expanded her reach within the Earth Kingdom—the more cities and states came together to give birth to her Earth _Empire_ —the frostier Katara had been towards her. They'd fought once about conscription ( _people shouldn't be forced to fight, they should volunteer because they know it's right / I can't go door to door and make sure everyone knows why they should volunteer. This war effort is bigger than a few individuals, and making it mandatory that every capable citizen does his or her part is in everyone's interests)._ They'd fought again when Kuvira had refused to hand the throne back to Kuei after Ozai's fall. Her nation had rallied behind her, her people stronger than they had been in her lifetime. They wanted _her_ to lead them and she knew that she could, so she refused to abandon them when there was still so much prosperity to be restored.

Kuvira wonders whether Katara will confront her about it tonight—and how long she's staying here. Katara's been in and out of the Fire Nation and the colonies since the war ended, usually standing behind whatever cause Zuko is trying to achieve. Keeping herself busy since the Avatar disappeared. It's Kuvira's understanding that Aang defeated Ozai, kissed Katara for more or less the first time and, moments later, proposed that they marry. Then he disappeared from the face of the earth.

"Kuvira," Zuko belatedly decides to go through introductions. "You know my sister, Azula; my," he stumbles over his words, "friend Mai, and you've worked with Katara before, of course. You might not know her protégé, Korra."

Katara snorts at the introduction. "Protégé?" she says. "More like a limpet I can't shake off."

Korra's grin is energetic and endearingly lopsided. "You love me."

 _Korra_. Kuvira hadn't recognised the face, but she's heard the name. Korra, the daughter of a Northern Water Tribe exile who'd settled in the Earth Empire. The skilled fighter who had left home as soon as she was old enough to roam across the land in search of the Avatar. Some of the whispers called her _water avatar_ , said she would rain down boiling liquid that burned like flames, raise chunks of ice as huge and hard as stone, manipulate water vapour as though airbending.

"So you're Kuvira," Korra says. "Wanna spar sometime? Toph is the only metalbender I've fought before, but she's always too busy for a rematch—"

"You mean Toph kicked your butt one time because you wouldn't leave her alone," Katara corrects.

Korra's grin doesn't waver. "Hey! I got a few punches in. Anyway," she turns to Kuvira, "I want to practice against all forms of bending, and metalbending's still so new that great benders are really hard to find."

"I suppose I could use a warm-up before I train in the morning," Kuvira agrees, teasing, and Korra pumps her fist with aggressive glee.

The collective mood of the dinner party warms by a few degrees. The waterbender has successfully broken the first layer of ice.

The food which arrives is a fairly mismatched collection of dishes; most are Fire Nation, but there are noodles and a sea prune stew that seem to be for Katara and Korra's benefit. There's a strange cabbage dish that Kuvira suspects is supposed to be the Earth representative in the array of platters on the table. She takes some of it, tries the prune stew and finds it bitter but still preferable to some of the other more intensely spicy dishes. There's an excellent and relatively mild roast komodo chicken which she has several servings of.

Princess Azula seems to enjoy the komodo chicken as well, tearing her way through several slices of the white meat at break-neck speed until she comes to a sudden stop.

"Excuse me a minute, Zuzu," she mutters in her brother's direction. Then she pushes her chair out with a scrape and exits the dining hall.

She returns several minutes later looking even more pallid than before, and, Kuvira thinks, a little spooked. She eats much more slowly after that, as though by putting food in her stomach she's treading on unsteady ground. Kuvira's seen starving men and women go through a similar process, gorging themselves the moment they get the chance only to find their bodies unable to cope the way they once would have.

She tries to observe the Princess without gawking at her. One stolen glance coincides with a flicker of lamplight that shines off a mottled patch of scarring on Azula's cheek. Azula's wrists are hidden behind long sleeves, flowing silk fastened tight by bands between the elbow and the wrist—but Kuvira has begun to suspect she might find similar scarring there. She's been in shackles before, and she knows that benders' faces can be weapons in just the same way as their hands. Firebenders in particular. Gags and muzzles can be harsh necessities until a prisoner's spirit is broken.

From the pink sheen of the scarred skin, it doesn't look like Azula's muzzle has been off for very long.

Zuko has observed Azula's struggle with her meal too, and has been giving his sister worried glances ever since she returned to the table. The looks are filled with guilt as much as they are sympathy. Kuvira came here looking for ways to get under the Fire Lord's skin, ways to extract some vulnerability and hone it into a bargaining chip—and the Princess certainly appearsto be a vulnerable point right now. Perhaps helping her regain her strength, assuaging whatever guilt Zuko has about her condition, could be the way into his good graces.

 

 

Kuvira sleeps too lightly that night. She is woken by the raucous calls of birds awakening in the trees—and underneath that, by the patterned footsteps and deliberate breaths of one rehearsing bending katas. It's early, still pitch dark in her room, and when Kuvira opens her curtain she sees that the sunrise is just barely tinting the sky with pink.

In the paved section of the garden outside, a slim figure wrapped in ill-fitting training gear is practicing her moves. She has the aggressive thrusts and punches of Princess Azula's formerly effortless fighting style, but her breathing is laboured now. The gentle, growing light shows Kuvira wan cheeks stretched over cutting cheekbones, a look of frustration twisting facial features as an arm slips below its desired point, too weary to lift itself any longer. Azula growls, takes a new stance and throws her fist forward. For a split second there's a flash of shy yellow flame, and then her fist just smokes.

Azula's breaths hitch unpleasantly as she makes her way over to the pagoda and hunches over on its seat, sipping water to recover.

Kuvira stretches the tension of unrestful sleep out of her muscles as she watches, and the pinching of the stretches reminds her that she's _not_ dreaming. The ruthless daughter of Ozai is not only weakened, she is broken. Azula cannot firebend.


	4. Chapter 4

Azula had been right to wait until she could attempt firebending in private. Her body is exhausted, a flimsy sack of rattling bones overly beholden to the forces of gravity. She'd pushed all the energy she could find within herself out into a single punch and still her flame had been no fiercer than the light of a small candle, immediately snuffed.

She rehydrates and calls for some food to be brought to her. Her body requires energy, protein. She wants to get back up and keep pushing herself further, never stopping until her former strength is restored, though she knows such an approach will only yield further injury. Recovery time— _waiting_ —does not feel like the urgent action that is needed.

She eats slowly, not repeating the mistakes of the previous night's meal. She stretches her muscles for a long time, relishing in the burn, though not in her poor flexibility.

She eats again when Zuko hosts breakfast for the various guests in the palace later in the morning. Azula is once again seated far enough from Katara that she does not have to look at the waterbender. She and Zuko are evidently still allies. Azula wonders how much of their friendship was cemented by collaboratively defeating her, taking her crown and everything that was supposed to come with it.

She wrinkles her nose at the odour of the sea prune monstrosity the waterbenders are eating. She finds herself acutely aware of every smell in the room. The gentle smell of plain bread twists at her gut. Things that she wouldn't have thought had notable scents at all now harass her from a distance. She avoids the spicy dishes, even though she always used to enjoy them the most. Instead, she soothes her stomach with tea.

Kuvira appears looking rather weary, although Azula's sure she'd be ridiculed for trying to pass such a judgment on anyone at present. The humidity has taken hold of the so-called Earth Empress' hair, which escapes in short, wiry tendrils from its severe styling. Kuvira must have done it herself; none of the palace servants would do such a lacklustre job. She's applied her usual sparse makeup; black liner to draw out the edges of her eyes in much the same fashion Azula favours. Not quite enough powder to hide the dark bags underneath them.

"You look like you slept well," Azula comments snidely as Kuvira takes the seat across from her again.

Kuvira raises one of her thick eyebrows. "As do you," she says, a laugh not far under the surface of the words.

"I hope you were comfortable," Zuko says, stilted as ever, like he doesn't want to imagine the Great Uniter in a bed under even the most innocuous of circumstances.

"Perhaps too comfortable, being afforded such luxury," Kuvira says. She seems very amiable. Azula can't quite tell what she means by it—a fact which bothers her immensely.

Zuko smiles more easily in response now. "I know the feeling," he says. "When I returned from my travels I was so used to sleeping on the ground I barely knew what to do with a downy mattress."

Azula picks strategically at the small portions of meat, egg and fruit she's taken and doesn't think about the way she'd lain in her own bed for hours, painfully awake. She had risen eventually, feeling frustrated and muggy with insomnia, checked the lock on her bedroom door and curled up on the floor instead. Even the carpet had been too soft after her cell floor. She'd wound a blanket around her torso so that her arms were locked tightly against her body, and finally managed to slip into unconsciousness.

 

 

Korra wastes no time in reminding Kuvira that she'd promised her a sparring match, so they make their way down to one of the open areas in the palace gardens. Zuko and Katara apparently have important business to take care of, but Mai glares at Azula until she agrees to come and watch. She doesn't want to risk receiving any challenges, though—she is all but incapable of firebending and her strength at present is simply not enough to match opponents as evidently fit as Korra and Kuvira in any form of combat beyond the verbal. She procures some trade reports and pretends to be engrossed with them as she sits alongside Mai, a safe distance from the paved sparring yard.

The two fighters have both stripped down to sleeveless tops; Korra wears her water tribe arm bindings and Kuvira has bound her own forearms in plain white strapping. They raise their arms into bending poses and the muscles flex, so prominent under the skin that they cast shadows. Their katas are in no danger of falling apart the way Azula's had done during her humiliating dawn session.

In addition to the water in the nearby fountain and the metal pieces Kuvira has detached from her military uniform for the occasion, servants have brought several large tubs of water and an array of old weapons to be bent during the match.

Korra begins it with a kick that slashes water in Kuvira's direction. It looks for all the world like a firebending move. Kuvira dodges, and the water steams lightly as it meets the ground. She looks momentarily surprised at the heat, but it's not enough to disturb her balance as Korra gathers water from the tubs and pushes a heavy block of ice right at her. Kuvira's hands move whip-fast and two strips of metal split the frozen chunk clean in half. The pieces sail backwards, each hitting the pavement with a crunch and sliding several metres.

Before Korra can pull together her next attack, Kuvira's metal pieces are hurtling towards her with intent. She dodges one safely, but the other catches her heel and she lands with a stumble.

Kuvira laughs, a throaty chuckle of wicked enjoyment. For the first time since she arrived here, she truly sounds like the conquerer of Ba Sing Se.

"Don't get too cocky," Korra warns, regaining her feet and furrowing her brow. She throws both hands out to pull the ice that had landed behind Kuvira back towards her in a flock of bright shards. Kuvira ducks most of them, hurriedly flattening metal out into a sheet to shield her back from the lowest-flying ones. She grunts as they make their bruising impact.

Korra follows up with a fierce water whip. Kuvira breaks it with her metal before it strikes her, but the falling spray still soaks the front of her singlet and the ends of her hair, which has rapidly freed itself from its restraints. She looks rather wild, Azula thinks, with her hair falling so loosely around her face, her clothes drenched, and a scowl pulling her brows down at hard angles to shadow her playfully vicious stare. Azula has never viewed battle as an excuse to lose her composure, but she remembers Ty Lee going on and on about how cute boys looked when they were roughed up and sweaty after a fight. It isn't that she _agrees_ , not entirely, but for the first time she entertains the notion that there could be a kind of raw power in such a state of disarray—and Azula cannot deny the attractiveness of power.

Kuvira calls on more pieces of metal, pulls material from the discarded swords and armour to form a fleet of metal fragments which hover in the air above her extended arms. At the same time, Korra has been raising more ice, making darts of it to mirror the threat. They stand, poised in this stalemate for a tense moment. Azula's reading sits very much forgotten on her lap, although she's still hardly on the edge of her seat. She may have lost touch with her firebending abilities, but she has been trained in the art of looking unimpressed since birth, and she retains all the necessary faculties to exercise that ability.

Korra grins challengingly, and her ice darts inch forwards through the air, teasing.

Kuvira counters with a dark look, and as her mouth sharpens into a deadly smile, so does each of her metal strips. Their edges narrow into knifepoints, sharp arcs of silver that glint in the morning light.

Azula knows that Zuzu and Mai have been infatuated with each other since they were children. Zuko is the clear winner in the equation, but Mai somehow remains attached to him despite his constant displays of immaturity. Watching Kuvira spar, that little smirk of glee on her face as she sends crescent razors hurtling through the air, Azula begins to think that Zuko has found himself in another position of extraordinary luck. Kuvira may be from the Earth Empire, and she may have come from nothing, but it's clear she's not nothing anymore. Even though she's here because _she_ proposed a match, there's an air of unattainability about Kuvira that is alluring. It is very much akin to the allure of a foreign city waiting to be conquered—a foreign city that bends metal with a knife-edged grin.

Azula wants to bring the woman's walls down.

Kuvira's potentially deadly attacks are obviously not meant to hit home; they skitter off the stone around Korra's feet, chiming like metallic hailstones, making her dance out an awkward retreat. It would be rather rude, of course, to come to a foreign nation on ostensibly friendly terms and then murder one of their guests. Azula doesn't care for either of the waterbenders, although if one of them has to die she'd prefer it to be Katara.

Kuvira hammers home her success by raising the earth under Korra's feet and throwing her onto her back. She's been holding back on the destruction of the palace gardens, and she makes sure to slot the block she's pulled out cleanly back into its place.

"Is that all you've got?" she asks while Korra pulls herself up. Kuvira throws a look over to where Azula and Mai are seated. She catches Azula's eye for a moment and her smirk only deepens. Azula's facial muscles feel stiff and strange. They want to be doing something other than holding her current expression of detachment, but she can't even guess what that something is.

"You really want me to show you what I can do?" Korra calls out, brushing grit tenderly from the elbow that had taken the brunt of her fall.

"That's why I asked."

Korra pushes her arms forward and sends water pouring out across the floor. She lowers them, and it freezes into a slick. It encases the bottoms of Kuvira's boots, and though her metal chips away at the ice, she loses her balance when Korra hurls another water whip in her direction. Kuvira goes down with a cry, and narrowly avoids having her wrists pinned to the ground by more of Korra's ice. Still on her knees, she punches earth up from underneath Korra with one arm while the other extends, fingers pointing flatly almost like she's directing lightning. Blunt metal flies at Korra as she leaps away from the earth attack and slaps itself over her mouth. It knocks her to her knees as well, though more by surprise than sheer force, Azula thinks.

When Korra raises her head to look at her opponent, her eyes are furious.

Kuvira more than matches her.

One of Korra's hands is caught by more metal, cuffed and held prisoner up in the air. She extends the flattened palm of her other hand towards Kuvira. At first, it appears that her attack has failed her, but a sharp inhale from Kuvira as her saturated shirt front begins to steam says otherwise.

In pain, Kuvira grunts and sends her next attack more roughly. Korra, already pinned by two pieces of metal, can do little to avoid the third as it encircles her other wrist. Kuvira drags her up into the air, but as the water soaking her clothes gets closer to boiling against her skin, her grip falters and Korra is dropped.

For a moment, Azula thinks she might actually see the fight go further, but instead the two exchange a look that settles a truce between them. They are left panting heavily, grumbling and, in Kuvira's case, tearing the clothing from her torso. She pulls her singlet over her head and tosses it onto the thawing ice around her, then sets about unravelling her chest bindings right there in the middle of the garden. The skin underneath is pink and raw, and Azula finds herself transfixed by the total unabashedness of the action.

What lies beneath Kuvira's singlet is technically no more than the swells the fabric promised, and yet it still manages to take Azula by surprise. Nudity does not startle her; she has seen the human body before. No, it's something about the way Kuvira acts as though she is doing nothing out of the ordinary—acts exactly as a man would. Azula supposes that a woman who has achieved as much as nearly any man in history should be free to dress and undress as carelessly as one if it should please her. Azula herself has simply never considered that she might want to before.

"I can heal that," Korra is saying as she stumbles over to Kuvira. She favours one leg; the other knee was clearly knocked with some force when she fell. She is already pulling clean water from one of the tubs to use for healing when she adds, "or we could wait for Katara to get back. She's better at the healing stuff, more patient—"

Kuvira snorts in amusement despite the pain.

"Katara more _patient_? Ordinary I wouldn't believe anyone who said such a thing—but having just fought you, I know it's probably true."

Korra laughs. There don't seem to be any hard feelings, despite the hard knocks.

"Don't call Katara," Kuvira says, and indicates that Korra should proceed with the healing.

Korra raises a bubble of water over Kuvira's scalded chest and presses it against the skin, where it glows, channelling and magnifying the healing power in Kuvira's own body. That is Azula's understanding of the process of waterbending healing, at least.

It must be working, since the metalbender sighs in relief. Healing just the surface of the skin doesn't take very long, although the moments it does take seem to stretch out in their oddness as Azula watches her brother's bare-chested fiancée-to-be being more or less fondled by another woman, unconcerned about the audience watching on. It's the sheer oddness that keeps her watching until the healing is completed and Kuvira has rerobed herself. Meanwhile, Mai elbows Azula and offers a look that seems to accuse her of something.

The entire affair is exceedingly strange.


	5. Chapter 5

The undressing had been more instinctual than anything else; Kuvira's clothes were steaming her alive, and she needed them off. Now, though, it's a matter of either being apologetic about her indignity, or refusing to recognise the act as such. Kuvira will not be apologetic.

What's more, the incident was surprisingly informative, upon reflection. Kuvira remembers the Princess' calculating eyes, stretched a little wide with surprise, fixed on her. Azula doesn't come across as easily impressed, but she'd certainly shown some form of interest in the sparring, and the way in which it ended.

The skin over Kuvira's breasts is still a little tender, though not sore. She examines the area as she changes out of her training clothes and into another of her lightweight green outfits. She'd been worried, coming here, that the Fire Lord would send her Fire Nation garments and expect her to wear them, to blend in entirely. She's glad that he hasn't, whether it's out of consideration or a simple failure to think of it.

She brushes the tangles out of her hair and pulls it back, rolling the sides before adding them to the bun, to keep the curls at bay. She sets them in place with her usual pin. It's such a fixture in her daily presentation that she often wears it unthinkingly—but it seems that today she will have the misfortune of being acutely aware of where it came from. A different pain shoots needles through her chest as she remembers Baatar's fingers fumbling to put the clip in her hair for the first time. Hands that were otherwise so sure and clever, steady enough to fine-tune machinery, racked with the nerves of offering a gift to a girl.

And she had been a girl. She'd thought that she was fully grown after fending for herself for so long, but the Kuvira who had thanked Baatar for his gift with a soft voice and a kind smile had been naïve despite it all. Ignorant of the hard truths about what it took to achieve even the most honourable of goals.

Kuvira swallows down the feelings as best she can, ignores the hungry hollowness in the pit of her stomach. She turns to the mirror and draws her eyeliner on with hands she will not allow to shake.

She considers her next move; there are still a few hours until the midday meal, and she will not spend them locked in her room, steeping in old memories and misery. The Fire Lord is not around, but the Princess is, and Kuvira has unanswered questions about her. So she sets off in search of Azula.

She asks around amongst the servants and is eventually directed to a small gym down near the armoury. She finds the Princess lying under a weighted bar she looks unaccustomed to lifting with such frail arms.

Kuvira stands in the doorway and watches for a moment while her presence goes unnoticed. Azula's focus is consumed by the challenge of keeping the weight from crushing her. She's wearing less than Kuvira's seen her in so far; just a cropped sleeveless top and pants. An outer layer lies discarded at the edge of the room. Like this, Kuvira can see that her arms are so bare of muscle that the elbow joints look enormous. There's the tiniest hint of bicep twisting over her humerus. Ribs hold up skin like tentpoles, and beneath the ribcage Azula's torso falls away into startlingly little. It only rises again at the waistline of her pants, thanks to the sharp jut of hipbones. A sheen of sweat covers it all, makes the pale, milky skin appear almost pearlescent.

Azula grunts as her arms begin to wobble.

Kuvira reaches out for the metal of the weights and lifts it a few feet up into the air above the Princess.

Azula recovers from her shock so quickly it barely even registers on her face. Her expression leaps straight to indignant.

"Show-off," she accuses.

Kuvira snorts. "And _you've_ always been modest."

"At least I'm modest in my dressing—or undressing, as it were."

"I see you take particular note of what I do and don't wear," Kuvira says, letting more than a little implication slide through the words. She isn't sure where this kind of banter could go—whether it might be the key to some kind of flirtation. It seems like an avenue that's worth pursuing, after the way Azula had stared at her that morning.

"Well, your display was rather difficult to miss," Azula sits and reaches out to pick the bar back up.

Kuvira nods in mock understanding. "It would have been completely _impossible_ to avert your eyes."

Azula huffs. "Have you come here just to harass me, or have you some actual purpose?"

"I have a proposal for you." The words come out of Kuvira's mouth before she's filtered them as rigorously as she ordinarily would. The idea only takes a clear form in her mind as she speaks them.

"Really? I thought it was my brother you were intent on wedding yourself to."

"Not that kind of proposal. I want to challenge you to a sparring match."

Azula looks her up and down. "No thanks," she says, setting the bar in place over her chest. Her arms are already shaking. Kuvira takes hold of the weights again and lifts the bar up. Azula doesn't let go, and her whole body is pulled back upright before she stops wrestling Kuvira for control.

"Not yet, of course. I can see you're still recovering from... things. But it's not every lifetime a person gets the chance to spar with the greatest firebender in the world. I'm willing to wait—and to help."

"I don't need your help," Azula shoots back, a refusal that Kuvira knows is instinctive. Charity is not something the Princess would ever knowingly accept.

She gives an easy shrug. "I know that. But I'm here for a month and I can't spend _all_ of that time signing off on Earth Empire paperwork in my private rooms. I'm here to get to know the place, and the people. It would be a trade, not a favour."

Azula rolls her eyes, which Kuvira takes as a promising sign.

"Fine," she says. "I wake for meditation as soon as the sun begins to rise. If you want to train with me then you'll be there tomorrow morning, and you won't be late."

"Are you finished your training for today, then?" Kuvira enquires. "Maybe you'd join me for tea in the garden."

"I've no interest in small talk," Azula warns.

"Neither do I."

Azula sizes Kuvira up yet again while she pulls her baggy shirt back on—not as a sparring opponent, in the physical sense at least, but as something else. Azula's eyes on her are becoming a regular occurrence, and even without her fire they always seem to burn.

She doesn't confirm the invitation but she waves for Kuvira to follow her as she exits the gym, so Kuvira goes along.

 

 

Rather than having tea in the gardens again, Azula selects a higher perch, somewhere that emphasises how grand the palace is. Kuvira pretends not to notice the wheezing of the Princess' breaths by the time they've climbed up to a great balcony overlooking the enormous royal courtyard—a rectangular open space large enough for a congregation of thousands upon thousands of citizens. It makes Kuvira miss her armies, miss standing before them as they hung off her every word and spread a contagion of aggressive cheer. This platform is even higher than the great steps out the front of Ba Sing Se's palace.

Azula doesn't start a conversation, and neither does Kuvira; she just keeps her focus on the view. It speaks for itself.

The tea arrives in the hands of a young servant with the faded eyes and sun-tanned skin Kuvira usually associates with wanderers and bandits in the dustiest, most impoverished parts of the Earth Empire.

Azula doesn't seem to notice the boy. She is apparently caught in a reverie of her own, staring down at the empty square below as though it's populated by a roaring crowd. This looks like the kind of place the Fire Nation might bring its war heroes to cry their praises. It could have been here that the Princess stood and announced that she had killed the Avatar.

She hadn't, as it had turned out, but she'd certainly planted the first seeds of insanity in Aang. Lightning strikes can cause changes in people, their personalities as well as their bodies—and from what Kuvira saw of Aang during the final stretch of the war, it had changed him. Weakened some link inside him that bringing down Ozai had caused to finally snap.

She hadn't seen Azula during that time, but she'd heard...

Something isn't right. The moment Kuvira takes her first sip of tea she knows it, the way she knows when the earth is unstable beneath her feet.

"Stop drinking," she tells Azula, but the Princess has been drinking faster than Kuvira has. Her first cup is already gone.

"What?" she asks irritably. She turns to look at Kuvira, and then her eyes widen at something she sees beyond her shoulder.

Kuvira whips around to look, but there is nothing there—only the edge of the balcony, identical to its other side; the gardens down below; the city small on the horizon; the blue sky and its fluffy clouds above. Nothing is unusual about any of them.

There are three sounds in quick succession: a grunt of pain, a dull thump and a sharp crash. Kuvira turns back to see Azula slumped over the table, spilt tea soaking into her hair as the pot rolls. Her cup is in pieces by her feet.

Panic rises in Kuvira's throat. It mixes there with burning bile and something altogether foreign. She coughs, but whatever it is doesn't shift. It feels heavy, although not solid; almost like slimy metal. She doesn't expect to be right about this, but when she feels for it with her bending, commands it to move, it obeys. She pulls it up and out of her mouth, coughing violently all the way. It is no more than a few specks of silver, which could easily have gone unnoticed among the tea leaves, or even been painted onto the decorative rim of the cup.

She goes to Azula and wrenches her head upright. The Princess is still halfway conscious, but it's not clear what she's seeing and hearing. She mumbles garbled answers to people who haven't spoken.

Kuvira ignores the sickly writhing that continues as her stomach refuses to settle, and watches the doorway out of the corner of her eye. She keeps her body positioned below the stone wall of the balcony in case the poisoner has ordered a sniper as a backup plan.

She works as fast as she can, but feeling for the metal inside another's body is much less simple than locating it inside her own. The quantities are tiny, the substance itself slippery, and the body is a barrier instead of an aid in feeling it out. If she pulls the metal the wrong way it could cause irreparable damage to Azula's insides. All this, and her own nausea has added ghostly duplicate outlines to all the shapes around her.

She retrieves an amount approximately equal to what she drew from her own throat before she is interrupted. The tanned boy is back. He looks pleased, so Kuvira immediately bends the metal handle of the teapot into a knife.

"What is this?" she growls at him, letting the blade hover in front of his nose. He just smiles at it.

"Surely _you_ of all people recognise a murder when you're caught up in one," the servant says. "But then, maybe you're immune to all that by now."

"I don't see a murder scene here because you haven't succeeded." The deep, dark voice of the Great Uniter grates uncomfortably against her raw throat but she projects it at him anyway. "What kind of _fool_ would try to poison a metalbender with her own element?"

His smile bares teeth, now. The expression is full of malice. "Well, exactly," he says. "And why would _I_ poison the Princess with metal? That's clearly your area."

Kuvira pulls the flat metal ornamentation off the neck of her shirt and wraps it across his throat not-so-gently. She hauls him up just enough that his feet dangle in the air. His face grows red and strained.

Azula groans and her head cracks down against the surface of the table again.

"Suyin sends her regards," the servant splutters, and Kuvira tosses him to the ground just in time for guards in heavy red armour to seize her. She lets them carry her away; running will do the opposite of acquit her of this.

 

ϟ

 

Zuko had allowed a powerful enemy to bargain her way into his home, and now his sister is lying in bed sweating and twitching through some deathly fever, screaming at phantoms in the rare moments she opens her eyes. The little whimpering, hitching noises she makes take him straight back to the aftermath of their agni kai, make him remember standing with Katara, rattled and spent, and regarding Azula as she knelt chained to a grate in the ground. He had not liked having to witness the raw thing she had proven to be underneath all her armour then, and he likes it even less now that her wild torment isn't her own fault.

Zuko stays by Azula's bedside for as long as he can stand. Mai barely steps through the doorway before she's leaving again; waiting idly is not something she enjoys.

He finds her throwing her shurikens at priceless tapestries in one of the meeting rooms just off the throne room. He holds out a hand, wordlessly asking to borrow one. Mai raises a skeptical brow at him but acquiesces to the request. Zuko throws the blade awkwardly and strikes the wall at such an angle that it only bounces off. It's pathetic—comically so—but neither of them laugh. Mai offers him a second blade, but he doesn't take it.  

"I sent a hawk to Ty Lee," she tells him, slicing into a woven map of the Fire Nation as it had been until midway through Sozin's rule. The internal reconfigurations of the nation's cities and states since that time are almost as dramatic as the altered borders brought about by colonisation. The tapestry depicts as cultural centres, farming towns, temples and untouched wildernesses places Zuko has only ever known as military compounds and prison camps. He would stop Mai from destroying the map if there wasn't a perfect copy hanging in one of the hallways nearby. He's grateful to have been spared the confrontation.

"Are you sure that writing to her about Azula was a good idea?" Zuko asks, even though the question is pointless.

Ty Lee hasn't been back to the Fire Nation since she joined the Kyoshi Warriors. She's written to Mai, but she's never even asked after Azula, and such an omission is glaringly obvious coming from Ty Lee. Zuko knows that she was the closest thing Azula ever had to a best friend.

"There's no way she'll take it well, no matter how she feels about Azula these days. But keeping it from her won't make it any better."

"I guess you're right."

"I tend to be."

Mai throws the last of her shurikens but makes no move to retrieve any of them. She looks at Zuko, expression as unreadable as ever. She takes a step closer, lifts a hand to his face so that her fingers brush the edge of his scar. They are soft and dry, and he misses them even as they're touching him.  

Mai leans in and places a quick kiss on Zuko's cheek, right beside his lips. He tries to chase her forward but she's already sidestepping him.

"We're not together anymore, Zuko," she reminds him, snatching her weapons out of the wall and returning them to her sleeve. "Speaking of which: we should go and talk to her."

"To...?"

Mai rolls her eyes almost violently. "Your fiancée, _obviously_."

Zuko grits his teeth. If Kuvira's guilty of trying to poison Azula then she's made herself and her Empire an enemy of the Fire Nation. If it turns out she won't cooperate, then both countries are in trouble—but, says a niggling voice in his ear, if she's made that decision then at least the wedding will be off.


	6. Chapter 6

They let her sit and ache on the splintered floor of a wooden cell for about twenty-four hours. There's earth that Kuvira could bend just underneath the wood, so the whole thing is somewhat redundant, but it's still a slap in the face—as are the coarse fabric bonds that bind her wrists tightly together behind her back. The discomfort peaked a short while in, and now her shoulders feel almost like they belong to someone else. She was glad to let them go.

Her anger had risen and fallen with the pain. Now she just looks forward to baring her wrists and the rashes that have been rubbed into them at every possible occasion and watching Zuko squirm. He'll release her, of course; it's just a matter of what duration of false imprisonment he'll feel guilty about afterwards. Kuvira is brought plain bread and tea more than once during her day of detention. She wonders how often Azula received the same, and mulls over what the Fire Lord's treatment of his sister says about him.

It's a curious thing, the way Zuko couples his potential for cruelty with his quest for righteousness. His story is a series of rash actions and guilty retreats. He hasn't recognised the truth, yet: the fact that even if there is some way to be perfectly honourable, it's not the most effective way forward. What's most important in a world like theirs is keeping one's eyes on the horizon and making _progress_. Trying to tread harmlessly across that ground—ground that's already so deeply damaged that there can _be_ no painless path—will only lead to staring fearfully at the ants underfoot and never taking a single step.

By the time Zuko and his guards come to interrogate her, Kuvira is sitting up calmly and waiting for them.

"Someone needs to bend the last of the metal poison out of Azula," she informs him, as she had tried to do while she was being led down to this cell a day ago. Things must have worsened since then. "She's already weak. Wait much longer and you'll have killed her."

Zuko reddens. " _I'm_ not the one who's poisoned her!"

She replies with a level calm that points out the impotence of his rage. "Neither am I. But I am your best hope at saving her; the poison is metallic."

"I know it is! It's not like you're the only metalbender in the world, though!"

"I am the only one who's right here, right now, and you're wasting time that Azula doesn't have. She's in bad shape, isn't she?"

A twist of Zuko's face confirms it. "Toph Beifong will be here by tomorrow morning," he says.

If Kuvira's counted time correctly, that's almost another full day's time.

"Fine," she says. "I just hope she still has a patient to treat by then."

Zuko marches out without another word, but Kuvira is satisfied with her progress.

 

It can't be more than two hours before he comes back, this time with the sombre woman, Mai, by his side. They've been lovers, Kuvira has gathered. A relationship interrupted by her proposition. Mai sends Zuko a cutting look which prompts him to order that the guards release Kuvira. More than just a romantic entanglement, then; Mai is also an advisor.

"You're going to fix this," Zuko informs Kuvira curtly.

"You are the only thing that's prevented me from doing so already."

 

Something about being in Azula's room feels strange. It's mostly furnished the same way as Kuvira's, although there's a silk cloth thrown over the mirror that is built into the dresser, and a bare hook on the wall where something has been taken down. There are no pictures or tapestries, no notable collections of personal objects lying around.

Amongst the fine sheets, the Princess sweats and whimpers and lashes out against invisible assailants. The frantic fear that has arrested her is loud and tearful and renders her the absolute opposite of the proud, tactical young woman Kuvira first met at Ba Sing Se. Kuvira has witnessed the breaking point of torture before, and it feels like she is witnessing it again now. There is no reprieve, though. It doesn't end, doesn't give any of its intensity. If this has been going on for days, she's no idea how Zuko stood firm for even as long as he did.

She thinks of the verbal jabs the Princess had directed at her back in the gym, or at their shared meals—sass, bordering at times on something that might have been flirtation—and wonders how much of this madness could have been lurking beneath the surface even then. How deep it had been buried. Kuvira has built up the highest of tolerances to pain—both her own and others'—so it's a surprise to find that watching this hurts.

Katara is standing by the Princess' bedside too. She's obviously been tending to her, although she makes no effort to hide how unhappy about it she is.

"Well?" Zuko gestures impatiently to his sister. "Undo the damage you've done."

Kuvira steps up to Azula's bedside and holds her hands out over her patient's body to sense the metal. The small amount still inside her is more dispersed than it was immediately after consuming the poisoned tea. Kuvira hopes she can manage to remove it without having to open any veins.

"I didn't do this," she replies, slowly and a little distractedly; the conversation is now very much a secondary task. "One of your servants is a traitor. Find the boy who looks like he just walked back to the palace from some far-flung corner of the Earth Empire. You know, the one who was right there while your guards arrested me?"

Zuko doesn't answer her. She can hear muttering behind her, but she tunes it out as she begins to gather the poison that riddles Azula's abdomen, pulling it towards her stomach and then up out of her mouth. It's such delicate bending work that she's tired from the tension of her movements by the time the tiny bubble of silver is released. It looks far too small to have caused so much pain.

Azula's eyes open with a sickly roll. "Who invited _you_ here?" she asks.

Kuvira frowns. "Zuko invited me here. To _save_ you."

"Not you," Azula snaps. "Her." Her eyes flicker to the space behind Kuvira. There is no one there.

Kuvira reaches out with her bending to feel for more poison, but she can't detect any.

"Send her away, Zuzu. She's only pretending to care whether I live or die. She never did."

 

After water and a small amount of food, Azula is able to hold a conversation with the people who are actually present.

"So, have you executed the traitor yet?" is the first thing she asks, blasé tone belied somewhat by the rough croak in her voice.

"It's, uh," Zuko stammers, "it's not Kuvira, then?"

"Well of course not," Azula waves a hand, the gesture weak but still dismissive. "She's not an idiot—and besides, she was poisoned too. Spirits, must I conduct _all_ the effective diplomacy around here, even on my sickbed?" she sighs, a bit theatrically even for the circumstances. "What was it the servant said to you, Kuvira? Something about a Su Chin?"

"Suyin."

"Yes, that. Since it seems you haven't yet set him on fire, I suggest you ask him more about whoever Suyin is. Perhaps Kuvira can assist."

The Fire Lord is certainly aware of who Suyin is, even if his sister isn't. Anyone who's been out working in the colonies has little hope of staying ignorant. Suyin, leader of the main radical Earth Nation group; Suyin, metalbending student of Toph Beifong; matriarch of the household Kuvira grew up in; outspoken and aggressive opposer of the Earth Empire's continuation post-war.

"With Suyin's involvement, it makes sense that I would be targeted," Kuvira reasons, "but it's much less clear why Azula would be. Sure, Su hates the Fire Nation, all its royals and military officials—but there's no reason she'd single out the Princess since for all she could know Azula's still locked away in prison."

There's a knock at the door, and a guard enters. "We've found him."

 

 

The servant's name is Sego, and he _looks_ like he's just trekked across the Earth Empire because he _has_.

"He returned from a supply run to the Earth Kin— uh, Empire, just a week ago, your highness," a higher ranking servant explains to Zuko, throwing nervous glances at Kuvira all the while. "He offered to go because he wanted to track down his sister, Sai. We were all familiar with her—she was one of Azula's staff until she was banished. So no one really questioned his inclusion in the mission."

Sego, who has so far done nothing but glower up from the chair he's cuffed to, speaks up then.

"Banished for nothing, by the mad Princess on her coronation day!"

Azula regards him for a moment, allows the tension to gather, and then lets out a short laugh. She's standing on her own, although Mai and a couple of guards are close by her side to ensure she'll be caught if she falls. She hadn't tried to walk here from her room, at least; Zuko had ordered a palanquin and she hadn't protested against being carried that way.

"Ah, yes," Azula says. "I thought your ugly facial features seemed familiar. I remember Sai now. Say, do you know what your sister's crime was, Sego?"

"She committed no crime!"

"I beg to differ. Your sister was banished because she served me food which was not safe to eat. It was negligence, not malicious intent—but negligence remains unacceptable. And now you _deliberately_ serve me food which will endanger my life. What penalty do you suppose that should attract?"

Sego ignores her question in favour of telling his own story.

"I found her, you know. In Ba Sing Se, I found her dressed all nicely with her hair combed and a smile on her face and I was _so relieved_. And then I went to greet her and she—she didn't even know me. It was Sai, but she said her name was Joo Dee. I asked her what the Great Uniter's people had done to her. Over and over again I asked, and all she'd ever say was that _the Great Uniter brought order to the Earth Empire, ensuring an end to a century of war and the rise of a new age of prosperity_. Said it so many times that now even I know all the words. She sounded like a puppet.

"Eventually I grabbed her hand and tried to pull her along with me, but she threatened to call the authorities. Suyin found me sitting in the street with my head in my hands, and invited me to come back to Yu Dao with her—said she could give me the tools to exact some kind of revenge if I wanted. So I ditched the supply crew and went."

"So, naturally, when you found out the Princess of the Fire Nation and the leader of the Earth Empire would be drinking tea together, you thought you'd found the perfect opportunity to assassinate one and frame the other for the crime," Azula tuts, picks at her short, painted nails. "I suppose you should be commended for trying, but you were always destined to fail. You underestimated us, Sego. Had you not underestimated us, you'd have known better than to even try."

She speaks as though she hasn't just spent a day tangled up in the jaws of some deathly madness—as though the whole ordeal has been little more than an irritation. She speaks with such patronising certainty that Kuvira herself might believe her if she didn't know better. This façade of unflappability, untouchability, is deployed with an ease that takes years of rehearsal. A lifetime, Kuvira supposes.

"Well, the traitor's guilt is clear," Azula turns to her brother. "What justice will the Fire Lord serve? A public execution—or an agni kai, perhaps?"

"I'm not a firebender," Sego interrupts.

Azula looks at him, cold and hard. Then, even more terrifyingly, she smiles.

"I'm aware," she tells the servant. "I suppose my question should have been: shall we bind his limbs before we burn him alive, or let him try to run?"

Zuko looks very uncomfortable.

"Would you be his challenger, Azula?" he asks.

"He attempted to murder your fiancée and your closest remaining relative under the roof of your palace; he has wronged the Fire Lord. You of all people should know how it works, Zuzu."

Zuko's already significant discomfort increases. He rubs his scarred left temple.

"An ordinary execution should be fine," he says stiffly.

Kuvira understands the desire not to end lives with one's own hands, but if the years spent assembling her Empire taught her anything it's that the hand of authority cannot be seen to falter, and backing down when justice needs to be served is no way to impress the inviolability of the law upon anyone.

"Perhaps there _should_ be an agni kai, if both the Fire Lord and the mad Princess are cowards," Sego sneers. "I was a soldier. Give me a sword and I can gut a coward just fine."

Kuvira reaches out to the irons on his hands and feet and shears some of the material from each—enough to make strap his mouth shut. Someone has to step up, to be the strongest person in the room, and Kuvira will not shirk that responsibility.

"The Fire Lord isn't the only world leader you've wronged," she says, lacing her hands at her lower back and pacing closer to the prisoner. A flicker of fear passes through his eyes. "And I don't know what official execution procedure here in the Fire Nation is, but the way I do things, problems like you are dealt with swiftly. I have everything I need to punish a traitor right here in this room, right now."

She stops to gauge the reactions of the others; Mai looks slightly less bored than usual, but still shows very little. Zuko is trying to stand up taller. Kuvira likes that he is intimidated, but knows his intimidation is hardly a meaningful indicator of her strength.

Azula is watching on curiously, that smile still fixed on her face. She looks at once cold and indulgent. Her smile is an act of violence. She nods at Kuvira, already knowing what the next move is.

Kuvira pulls the metal off Sego's mouth and keeps it hovering in the air before him. She tightens her fingers and the metal thins obediently into a razor blade.

"May I?" she asks Zuko, testing, daring him to say no.

Zuko stands paralysed for a long moment. In the end it is Mai who speaks up.

"Go ahead," she says. "He's dead one way or another."

Kuvira thrusts her arm forward and the blade sails through Sego's neck. She watches only as much of the procedure as is necessary to keep her aim, but there's no avoiding the resistance that shudders along the link she has with the metal as it severs his spine.

She turns away immediately and gestures, calm but suggestive, to the door. Zuko leads them out, all too happy to leave. Azula is still smiling as she re-boards her palanquin. Kuvira bends her own expression into something flat and rock-hard.


	7. Chapter 7

Seeing Kuvira execute their poisoner is worth the struggle of being out of bed. Azula returns to her room immediately afterwards, however. Zuko seems almost surprised at her restraint, but in circumstances like these knowing when not to waste one's energies is a key indicator of intelligence.

While the party exits the interrogation room and the servants move in on the dead traitor's body, a messenger arrives with a delivery of papers for Kuvira; Earth Empire matters. Kuvira thus excuses herself, presumably retiring to her own quarters to attend to the business of running her Empire. The more Azula reflects upon the way Kuvira conducted herself with Sego, the more she finds the Empress a worthy opponent in the contest of conquering.

It makes sense that she would respect such a well-contained display of power—and yet it's surprising, too. Kuvira is not and will never be her equal; that much was ordained at birth. But still she finds herself, absurdly, looking forward to the next meal, at which they will be able to sit opposite one another. She wants to make another attempt at their private tea—tea with only the two of them and not Zuko, despite his being Kuvira's betrothed. As a child she had enjoyed nothing more than being chosen over her brother, and as an adult little has changed. Kuvira may not quite be Azula's equal, but neither is she Zuko's. She is altogether too much for him, and if anyone involved in their political mess doesn't know that by now then they're blind, deaf _and_ stupid.

If all that stands between Kuvira and control over the Fire Nation is dearest Zuzu, then the Fire Nation and its citizens are in a great deal of trouble. Azula would do a much better job in his role. She thinks of Kuvira's eyes on her and decides that it is not too late to.

 

 

The following morning arrives and Azula ventures out at dawn to sit in the garden and stretch gently, even if she cannot exercise. It had been difficult to sleep with her father speaking so loudly in her ear. She's fairly certain that Ozai is not here, because there's no way Zuzu would permit it, but her father has always spoken with such authority that it's difficult to contradict his words. No one had seemed to see Mother earlier, when she'd hovered in the corner and watched, too calmly, as her daughter almost died in the same manner that Ursa herself had ensured Azulon did. Azula thinks it best that she does not ask anyone for confirmation of her parents' presences. The Great Uniter would hardly respect a Princess whose mind was as damaged as her body.

So, she lacks the power to dispel her weaknesses. She cannot be prevented from _concealing_ them.

As the horizon grows a peachy pink, Kuvira steps out into the garden, wearing the same singlet and wrappings she had worn to spar with the young water tribe girl.

"Sorry I'm late," is all she says. She doesn't try to embarrass Azula into forgiving her tardiness with excuses about how she'd thought that in her weakness Azula wouldn't be training at all.

Kuvira takes a seat beside her, almost close enough that their knees touch. If her intention is to make her uncomfortable, then Azula will take no part in the game. She continues her breathing exercises and Kuvira settles into her own meditation. Azula has never had such a patient companion before; Mai is bored whenever she isn't in the process of actively trying to kill someone, and Ty Lee always preferred leaping around on her hands and babbling about auras to sitting quietly with her legs folded.

She won't even entertain the idea of Zuzu practicing meditation.

She and Kuvira keep the silence until it seems to swim around them, the endeavour of upholding it almost binding them together. It feels like sleeping, only softer, more like floating. It is different to Azula's usual meditations. Warmer, almost.

The trance of it is only broken by an intruder, some time later.

 

ϟ

 

Much as Mai resents Kuvira's presence in her life, she has to admit that things have already been more interesting around the palace since she arrived. It's been a while, for instance, since she got to witness a beheading. The incident with Sego had elevated her heart rate somewhat, even if it would have been more fun if she'd been the one directing the knife.

She's acquired a new weapon thanks to it, too—in everyone's haste to have Azula healed and the culprit disposed of, the actual poison Sego had used has been largely overlooked. Mai collected the main dose that had been pooled on the table where Azula and Kuvira had taken their tea, and she collects the remainder from the dish holding the candle by Azula's bedside, where Kuvira had left the liquid metal she'd removed in that later session.

Zuko is distracted, as usual, and this doesn't surprise Mai in the slightest. It is a little surprising that Azula and Kuvira haven't thought about the poison, though. They've been distracted too, she thinks; unexpectedly preoccupied with one another. She wonders what Azula's play is—or whether it's possible the Princess doesn't really have one.

Mai stashes most of the poison, collected in an old ink pot, behind the scrolls and inks on her shelf. She puts the rest, in a small vial, at the bottom of one of her desk drawers. If anyone comes to her demanding it, she can give them one or the other.

She spends the evening reading boring political reports, has her dinner brought to her quarters, and falls asleep on sheets that feel too cold without the presence of another, a firebender, heating them. It's fine—Mai can deal with cold. It's not at all that she _can't_ function properly without Zuko. Just that she'd prefer not to have to.

For a brief moment she considers sneaking into his quarters, but she quashes the idea. She will not be a lover kept in secret, not even by the Fire Lord, not even by the boy she's loved for so long that their relationship runs through her history like a spine. She will be chosen, outright, or she will let him go. Mai has severed spines cleanly before. She will survive whatever happens here.

 

 

She awakes the following morning to news of an arrival from Kyoshi Island. She hardly bothers putting herself together to go and meet with Ty Lee; just throws her simplest robe on and has her servants comb the knots from her hair as swiftly as possible. It's barely past sunrise, and she's tired; unlike some people, she isn't energised by the sun the moment it pops up above the horizon. Zuko, at least, knows to let her sleep in a little—in no small part because he's afraid of the grumpy, bedheaded morning-demon she becomes if she's disturbed before she's ready. Keeping up with Azula during the war had been much more draining because Azula was never deterred, just irritated.

" _I rise with the sun_ ," she mutters sardonically, remembering those days.

Ty Lee looks good, all things considered. She's grown taller, Mai thinks, and her cheeks and chin have narrowed out a little with just the ageing she's done in less than a year. She's wearing some of the baggy uniform of the Kyoshi Warriors, but not all of it; just a travelling outfit, not battle armour. She has also, thankfully, foregone the bright, heavy makeup. Mai shudders as she recalls having to wear it herself. She'd almost been glad when the Great Uniter became suspicious of the three Kyoshi warriors who knew less about Kyoshi than she did, and they'd had to leave.

Ty Lee takes in Mai's morning looks and smiles. It's a smaller smile than the great broad free grins she used to throw around almost indiscriminately. It is a sadder and more private expression. Ty Lee comes closer, looks ready to throw her arms around Mai, but hesitates.

Mai sighs loudly. She opens her own arms and gestures for Ty Lee to get it over with.

The embrace brings on unexpected nostalgia. Nobody else has ever hugged her like this, tightly with a chin hooked over her shoulder and a hand wrapped around the top of her back, for long enough that warmth begins to pass between their bodies. Mai's family are more like colleagues, she doesn't _have_ friends, and even the people she'd be most likely to consider as such aren't prone to intimate actions like this. Zuko is usually the only one who comes so close, and his embrace is something different.

"It's good to see you again," Mai says.

"You too," replies Ty Lee. Her smile leaves her face. "So, where is she?"

Mai sends one of the servants to find out whether the Princess is doing her usual morning training in the garden, and fills Ty Lee in on the details of Azula's near-death and tenuous recovery in the meantime. Ty Lee takes in the information with a deliberately sustained coldness of demeanour that Mai is altogether unaccustomed to seeing in her.

"I'm glad she isn't dead," Ty Lee says, at the end of Mai's brief recount. Ty Lee, who would become distressed if Azula told her that her hair was tangled and pulling at her scalp. Ty Lee, who wanted more for Azula than even Azula herself did, because she was wishing for love and happiness and inner peace on top of whatever achievements the Princess had set her mind to.

The servant returns with confirmation that both Azula and Kuvira are in the garden that lies between their respective wings, so Mai and Ty Lee set off in that direction. Ty Lee readily fills the silence with stories about her life on Kyoshi Island, to which Mai pretends to listen. It's like old times and it's not. Mai and Ty Lee might have known each other almost all their lives, but they've both still known Azula even longer. Azula's presence colours everything that's ever existed between them.  

They find Kuvira and Azula sitting side by side, meditating. It makes sense that they wouldn't be sparring while Azula isn't even a full day into her recovery, but it's still an odd sight. They both look thoughtful and relaxed. Peaceful, even. Surely descriptors like _peaceful_ should slide right off the scaly skins of these two.

Kuvira notices them first, probably listening to the ground with her bending. Soon enough Azula hears their approaching footsteps too and her eyes flick open, glare already hanging heavily from her brow. The strength of it falters as she takes in the sight of Ty Lee, and then redoubles.

"If you've come here to watch me die, I'm afraid you're only in for disappointment," she says coldly.

Ty Lee stands stock still. Mai gets the impression she's pictured what she'd do in this moment—upon seeing Azula again—despite herself, and all that premeditation is only making the living of it more difficult.

Mai weighs up the odds of there being a physical fight and decides it's not worth staying out here when there's more sleep to be had—or, failing that, some tea to help her properly attain consciousness.

"Well, I'll leave you to it," she tells the other three.

 

ϟ

 

Kuvira doesn't forget the faces of people who try to overthrow her, so she has at least some recollection of Ty Lee. She remembers her as a bouncy, perky personality, especially compared with Azula and Mai. Kuvira's only gleaned details about what happened to Azula's trio towards the end of the war, but whatever broke them apart must have really done a number on Ty Lee. The girl Kuvira remembers was soft and cute, her slyness a deceptive undercurrent. The woman staring down at her now looks like someone has dragged her across a whetstone.

Azula is getting to her feet, so Kuvira follows suit.

There's a lot of glaring going on, but not a lot of talking. Kuvira longs to break the tension, but it isn't her place to prompt whatever outpouring is imminent.

"Should I give you some space too?" she asks, glancing at Mai's retreating figure.

"You should," says Ty Lee stiffly, just as Azula says,

"There's no need for that."

And then the argument flows out.

"Now, Ty Lee, you can't really expect that I'll allow you to waltz in here and tell my friends to leave."

"Friend? Are you threatening her, or does she just not realise how quickly you'll turn on her? I'd have thought the _Great Uniter_ would know better than to believe a word you say. But then you do have a talent for lying—"

"Oh, _I_ turn on people, do I? I think you're forgetting _who turned on who—_ "

"I only did what I did to stop you from _killing_ Mai—"

" _She_ turned on me first!"

"And seconds later you were ready to _murder her_ —"

"She betrayed me—"

"—all we ever were to you was tools to be used. You never cared about us the way we cared about you—"

"Hah! Mai never _cared_ for me, so say what you mean, Ty Lee—"

"Fine! _I_ cared about you." For a moment they both stop. Ty Lee takes a deep breath. "You knew I cared about you, and I was still only one wrong move away from you hating me the whole time."

"One wrong move can change a lot."

 

 

It's just about time for breakfast (which, Kuvira has figured out, is usually served late because Zuko waits for Mai, and Mai prefers not to leave her room until midmorning) when Azula barges into Kuvira's room. It's lucky that she's simply sitting at her desk writing orders to Bolin back in Ba Sing Se at the time.

She's been smiling softly to herself while penning the instructions, being sure to keep her tone commanding but never mean. Bolin is too genuinely nice to follow someone who doesn't appear to have at least one streak of niceness in them too. She left him in charge because he's loyal like a tame polar-bear dog. She also chose Bolin because Varrick likes him. She made Varrick second in command, because although he's less reliable, he's not afraid to get his hands a little dirtier if necessary. That, and the fact that with Varrick comes Zhu Li, who will get things done even if the world is ending around her, and manage to serve hot tea at the same time.

Below Varrick and Zhu Li on the ladder are the Dai Li agents Kuvira secured during her coup. They're the ones least likely to object if she assigns them _unpleasant_ work—but their loyalties are also the most likely to waver in her absence, so it's better to only call upon them when necessary. They do still have an interest in keeping Ba Sing Se under control, even without her authority, so they'll mostly do their job without her having to tell them to. It's just the risk of one agent fancying himself the next Long Feng that she has to keep in check.

Not that Long Feng himself will be any trouble. She had him re-educated under Lake Laogai immediately after the coup—an example to any other agents who might consider trying to double-cross her. He has been relegated to the bottom of the food chain, and his loyalty to her is now built into him like parts in a machine.

It would all be easier if she could simply hand her responsibilities over to Baatar in her absence, like she used to. She only has herself to thank for her inability to do so now.

Azula enters with such forceful presence that, had she been at her full strength, she might have broken the door down.

"It's time for breakfast," she declares, standing there and watching Kuvira push pen across parchment.

"I'm aware of that," Kuvira answers. One of the servants assigned to her needs—Yei, she's fairly sure is her name—had told her so not five minutes earlier. "What I'm not aware of is why you've come to tell me in person."

Azula paces around the room, brushing over things with her hands as though claiming them. The display hits no nerves; there aren't really any of Kuvira's belongings lying around to be interfered with.

Azula seems to notice this, and steps up her game. She takes a seat on the edge of Kuvira's bed, stroking at the sheets.

"I simply thought you and I might talk," she says, in a voice that might sound innocent if not for the reputation of the person it's issuing from, or the look on her face.

Kuvira's not sure what Azula's angling for. If she wants to spy on Kuvira's correspondence, then she'll find the mission a boring one. Leaning over her shoulder is hardly the best way to monitor someone's letters anyway. This isn't Kuvira's palace; papers on their way out of the Fire Nation inevitably pass through hands that Azula and her family put paychecks into. The Princess certainly knows all of this.

"Why?" Kuvira asks, because it seems as good a question as any.

"Well," Azula sniffs, "for starters I'm sorry you had to witness Ty Lee's little... _display_ earlier. She's always been something of a drama queen."

Ty Lee is the intended topic, then. Interesting. Kuvira certainly has a question or two to ask about her.

"Were you two..."

"Together?" Azula fills in quickly. Far too quickly. "Yes. Although it wasn't the great romantic saga she'd have you believe. Not on both ends, at least. We were young, and busy conquering the world, and it so happened that we found each other attractive. That was all there was to it."

Azula would never volunteer such information unless it was her express purpose. Kuvira had suspected while watching their heated exchange that something more complicated than plain friendship had been at play between the Princess and Ty Lee, but having her suspicions confirmed so soon still leaves her in a state of surprise.  

"I hadn't realised you were interested in women," she says, even though she had begun to wonder.

Azula lifts a brow. "I hadn't realised it mattered to you. Why, does it change anything?"

Kuvira looks at the young woman sitting amongst the sheets she'd been wrapped up in hours before. She is thin but still strong and sharp; pale but still vibrant in her viciousness. She is weakened, but power still seems to run through her just as integrally as her blood does.

It's not like Kuvira doesn't know an attractive woman when she sees one, and it's not like this is the very first suggestion of flirtation that she's received, or even encouraged, from Azula. It's not like she didn't come here prepared to make an alliance with the royal family. It's just that, up until now, she hasn't considered that all these factors could combine into a single course of action. Flirtation is one thing...

She puts her pen down, lets the last spots of ink dry before rolling up her letter and rising, walking over to stand above Azula where she sits. The Princess holds her gaze, waiting.

"Do you want it to?"


	8. Chapter 8

Azula reaches for Kuvira's hand, pulls it down and lays it against her cheek. Kuvira doesn't snatch it back. When Azula takes her own hand away, Kuvira leaves hers in place. Azula feels her thumb move, just slightly, so that it brushes the edge of her lip.

She thinks of the last time she tried to seduce someone—someone other than Ty Lee, who required very little seducing. She remembers Admiral Chan's ignorant son, his jaw slack with bewilderment, intimidated by her power. Perhaps it hadn't even been her approach that was wrong. Power _was_ the ultimate aphrodisiac, after all. Even idiot Chan understood that to some extent, being one of the _most important teenagers in the Fire Nation_. He'd just been unable to think beyond the frivolous social capital of the noble classes. Azula had been wasting her time on the wrong calibre of person.

She stands up, which brings her face to face with Kuvira. She puts a hand on Kuvira's shoulder, feels the bare muscle there.

"You're strong," she says appraisingly.

Kuvira looks amused. "Yes," she agrees. "As are you."

"What happens if I do want this to change things?" Azula inches closer still.

The small height advantage Kuvira has over her is particularly noticeable when she's almost close enough for her nose to brush up against Kuvira's lips. She's an imposing woman, certainly, but Azula's been making grown men shrink before her all her life. Other people can be as intimidating as they like; it's all the more power for Azula once she owns them.

"Then I suppose things will change," says Kuvira. The words themselves don't mean half as much as the way in which they're said, all hot breath. There's not much space left between the two of them, but Kuvira manages to lean closer still without their lips _actually_ touching. With Chan it had all been more sudden. This slowness is at once more frustrating and more interesting.

Azula—because _she_ is _not_ afraid of action—closes the deal.

 

ϟ

 

Zuko has been making Katara's life difficult ever since he rammed his battleship into the middle of the Southern Water Tribe. His becoming an ally hasn't fixed that. Even his status as an ally is difficult these days. Without Aang around to remind Zuko (and everyone) of what's right, or to scare some sense into them with a show of his Avatar power, it's hard to keep pretty much anybody on track.

Katara slips down one of Yu Dao's little alleyways, hiding her face from the poor who have claimed the dirty ground as a place to sleep. She wants to offer them money, food, kind words—but there are just too many of them. She could spend months roaming the colonies and still give each person no more than a minute of fleeting respite. She pulls her green scarf up around her face to hide it, turns a few corners quickly enough to lose anyone following her on foot, and then ducks into a teahouse.

There's a woman with curled grey hair and an outfit of rich dark emerald sitting in one of the booths with a pot of tea that's already partially empty on the tabletop before her.

"You really thought _assassination_ was the way?" Katara hisses as she takes a seat across from her.

Suyin scoffs. "It was hardly a _real_ assassination attempt. That poor boy needed something to do; I gave him the tools to do it. No one was ever going to be killed." She waves her hand like it's all nothing.

" _He_ was killed for what he did," Katara points out.

"So he died feeling like a martyr for vengeance. Better that than dying under the trampling feet of ostrich horses because he couldn't pick himself up out of the gutter where I found him."

"You could always have helped him some other way."

A waiter brings two plates of noodles to their table. One is a spicy Earth-Fire fusion dish, the other an 'exotic' approximation of a water tribe delicacy—the latest culinary fashion around here, apparently. It's what Katara had eaten the last time she met with Suyin for a meal. It had been overly oily and clearly seasoned by someone who was accustomed to Fire Nation food.

"I took the liberty of ordering for us," Su says, picking up her chopsticks. "I hope you don't mind."

"Of course not," Katara replies, because she has no intention of wasting any of her fight on food choices.

"Now, to business. You didn't really ask to meet me here just to convey your disappointment about things that are already over and done, did you?"

Of course Katara hadn't. The trip here from the Fire Nation wouldn't have been worth that—even though between herself and Korra, the boat had been carried along much faster than the average vessel. Leaving the palace for a single hour would hardly have been worth that. Katara doesn't like the thought of leaving Kuvira and Azula there together for five minutes. They could destroy the place in that time.

"No," she tells Su, and takes a reluctant mouthful of the slimy, incongruously spiced noodles in her bowl. She washes them down with tea and continues. "You want to know what Kuvira and Zuko are discussing right now?"

Su leans closer. "Well of course I do," she says. Her eyes are hard, like she thinks Katara's going to keep it from her. And she _should_ keep it from her. In letting her stay with him, Zuko is trusting her with many of the secret machinations of the Fire Nation leadership. Suyin is the ringleader of the Earth Nation's resistance of both the Fire Nation and Kuvira's Earth Empire. Officially, her people are classified as a terrorist organisation by both governments.

But Zuko has been deaf to Katara's protests against this crazy marriage plan. Something needs to be done.

Katara would ask Toph for help instead, but Toph has been reluctant to get involved. Su is the one for whom the conflict with Kuvira is personal. Su will always act.

"They're discussing a marriage alliance," Katara whispers.

Su's eyes widen in incredulity. "Between what parties?" she asks.

"Between Zuko and Kuvira themselves."

Su shakes her head. "She wouldn't."

"I don't know about that," says Katara. "If it means taking the Fire Nation down from within, like she did Ba Sing Se..."

"But it would give _Zuko_ a right to her so-called Empire. Do they think that _merging_ the Fire and Earth Nations will make their citizens happy? The colonies are a testament to how unlikely that is," Su scoffs.

They're skating close to their point of conflict now; Suyin would uproot and toss out everyone of Fire Nation origin, regardless of their family ties, social ties, the lives they've built here—at swordpoint if necessary. Katara's not denying that there are problems here, but she _will_ deny that there can't be a better solution.

"A bigger empire isn't the answer," she says. "And Zuko can't handle Kuvira on his own. The engagement is Kuvira's plan, and it'll be her empire if it comes to fruition."

"You want me to distract her from her plan, is that it?" Su asks. "Because I can arrange for that."

Katara hopes she's done the right thing.

She takes the leftover slimy noodles with her in a little tub. As she walks back through the alleys filled with desperate people she spots a child, tiny and alone, hair matted, face dirty and, underneath the dirt, mottled with old scarring. He doesn't look more than seven years of age—too young to have old scars.

"What's your name?" she asks him. He doesn't hear her, but when she bends down in front of him he looks up.

He points to his ear and shakes his head. Deaf. Katara aches. She aches for so many people that she'll never be done with it. At least the more of their pain she feels, the less space she has for her own.

The deaf boy's wide, round eyes remind her of Aang's when she'd first met the century-old teenager down at the south pole.

She presents him with the tub of food, and he thanks her with a brown-toothed smile.

As she continues on her way, she hears a scuffle behind her.

"Good noodles," says a man's deep voice. "Man, I've missed noodles. Even these weird gloopy ones."

Once, Katara would have whirled around, glared and shouted and used her waterbending. Once, when she was nineteen or twenty and righteously angry all the time, with her faith in justice bouncing off Aang's and his off hers. When they were falling in love with each other's kindness and optimism. When saving the world seemed like it could really be done just by bringing one tyrant down.

Now she is twenty-one and lonely and bound up in arguments that can't be won. This is not the same as the war against Ozai. There is no evil Fire Lord in this alleyway, preying on the vulnerable from a seat at a table laden with sumptuous delicacies. There are only broken people, all trying to survive Ozai's legacy. Some are bigger than others but all are hungry. This new war is one Katara can't end with a shower of ice shards or a carefully timed water whip. This war is more about healing than fighting; an impossible surgery with too many different people vying to hold on to the blade.

 

ϟ

 

The kiss is short. Kuvira kisses more firmly than Chan, more demandingly than Ty Lee. It's difficult to settle into, like the two of them are doing one of the old traditional partner dances Azula's read about, and both trying to take the same role. Azula supposes it won't hurt if she lets Kuvira lead on occasion—though not enough to make her suspect that Azula's shows of affection are nothing more than the winning bluff in a game of pai sho.

It's Kuvira who pulls away, though only so that they're standing as they had been, breathing each other in.

"I could stand to try that again," Azula suggests. She flicks her eyes up to catch Kuvira's and finds something strange there. "What's the problem?"

"Nothing," says Kuvira hastily. "Nothing." She leans in this time, catching the back of Azula's neck in one hand, placing the other on Azula's waist, where it sits just above the jutting hipbone.

This time Kuvira offers far less resistance. She's more pliable than firm. Her lips part easily for Azula, but it's _too_ easy, like she's limp and not participating at all. There was more feeling in their quick press of lips, struggling against each other, than there is in this.

Azula cuts it off this time.

"Don't lie to me," she snaps. "There's something wrong. If you're going to kiss me like that all of a sudden then I demand to know why."

Kuvira shuts her eyes in a long blink, either cursing or readying herself.

"I was just remembering someone," she says, voice quiet and, Azula thinks, a little precarious in its steadiness.

Azula just waits for her to continue, signals as much with a small hand gesture.

"I had a fiancé," Kuvira explains. "He died during the war. Around the time I took Ba Sing Se."

Azula sits down on her bed and signals for Kuvira to do the same. They sit shoulder to shoulder. Kuvira keeps her eyes trained straight ahead at the wall, but she keeps talking, so Azula keeps cataloguing her confessions. (Who knew a kiss was all it would take to unlock her mouth?)

"We'd just secured Omashu for the Earth Empire when you brought your drill to the outer wall of Ba Sing Se. We were almost finished driving out the Fire Nation occupants and everything seemed to be going well enough, so I left Baatar in charge at Omashu and took the majority of my troops with me. Omashu's people were being cooperative, so he had their help getting rid of the last of the invaders—but once all of them were gone, certain people in Omashu turned their anger towards my remaining troops. Their king was a mad old man who _surrendered_ to the Fire Nation, and who was happy to hand his city over to me instead when I arrived and successfully overthrew them—but some of his loyalists wouldn't lie down so easily, and many of Omashu's soldiers were in that number. From what I understand, Baatar was one of several of my non-bending soldiers killed in rock slides when their residences were attacked overnight."

By the end of the explanation Kuvira sounds more level-headed, not less. She does not tell the story emotionally; rather, she recounts it in terms of military manoeuvres. Azula hadn't imagined that the woman who robbed her of the glory of taking the Earth Kingdom throne might have been anything but ecstatic as she'd sat there in that gilded chair.  

She knows just one key thing about personal sacrifices: they can only be avoided by weeding out the weakness of attachment before it can grow in the first place.

"Do you regret it, then? Taking Ba Sing Se?"

"At first I thought I did," Kuvira frowns. "But it was selfish. If I hadn't gone to Ba Sing Se, and if I hadn't taken my troops to help me secure it, then the largest city in the world would never have been mobilised to defend its people in the war. It might even have fallen into your hands."

Now is not the time to lose her temper over Ba Sing Se. It's not the time to think about her failures. Instead Azula runs the tips of her fingers over Kuvira's thigh and says,

"So in a way, my reward for losing Ba Sing Se is that I get to kiss you now."

Kuvira shrugs. "We should go to breakfast," she says.

"We should plan the wedding, afterwards."

Kuvira turns to her, surprise on her face. "Wedding?"

"Your wedding to Zuko, of course," Azula clarifies. It's clear that whatever's happened here has already distracted Kuvira from that mission, and Azula is gratified. "Planning such an important occasion requires exquisite taste and an eye for appropriate, _sophisticated_ grandeur. My brother should be ruled out immediately, of course, and if you ask Mai's help you'll end up wearing all black. I am by far your best authority on this, believe me—and, luckily for you, I'm willing to help you oversee everything."

"Thank you," Kuvira nods stiffly. "We can start on that after we eat."

"Of course. I for one am starving." Azula sweeps out of Kuvira's room, letting Kuvira follow her. All in all, she counts the visit as a definite win.

 

 

If Azula has her way, this wedding will never happen.

"...the finest silk," Odem, the wedding planner, is saying.

"Yes, yes," Azula agrees without really listening. Odem has been talking far too much for her liking, and Kuvira far too little. "No expense should be spared when it comes to procuring the finest materials; this is a royal wedding the likes of which has never occurred before. But what does the _bride-to-be_ think?"

Odem's attention shifts to Kuvira, who looks like she's doing her best to be made of the stone or metal she bends, hardening herself in her obvious discomfort.

"I'd like to wear my uniform," she says.

"But traditionally—" Odem begins.

Kuvira cuts him off. "This is a royal wedding the likes of which has never occurred before," she borrows Azula's words. "This is about progress, not tradition."

"It's _tradition_ for high-ranking military officers to wear their dress uniforms when they marry, if they so choose. Just because no Fire Lord's wife has, at the time of her wedding, occupied such a rank doesn't mean the possibility hasn't been there. The Great Uniter is in no way seeking to break tradition; in fact, she's upholding it more scrupulously than you are," Azula says, looking hard at Odem to make sure he knows the decision is final.

A wedding to be planned in green _and_ red, gold _and_ silver, would be a visual disaster to perfectly reflect the cultural disaster of merging Earth and Fire. But if Azula has her way, this wedding will never happen—and the appreciative look she receives from Kuvira is a step closer to her _real_ goal.

"Perhaps a greater emphasis on gold and silver in the decorations than on red and green..." she suggests, playing along.

 

 

"You're awfully happy to contribute to a wedding you yourself are undermining," Kuvira says, once Odem departs. They'd gathered in a meeting room near Azula's wing, so it's a good sign that she's lingering to talk further.

"Nonsense. Marriages are undermined by political differences, not romantic or sexual ones," she says, because it's true; satisfying one's private desires as necessary is pragmatic, not disloyal. She'd been an observant child, hardly oblivious to her father's various indulgences growing up. It was Mother's political betrayal that had done the family real harm.

"Besides, it would hardly be the most complicated marriage in the history of Fire Nation royalty," Azula continues easily. "In fact, I once found a secret account of my great-grandfathers Fire Lord Sozin and Avatar Roku which could clearly only have escaped destruction by some gross oversight, because it claimed that _they_ —"

"You're descended from Avatar Roku?" Kuvira asks, missing the point. "On your mother's side?"

"Yes," says Azula humours her. She doesn't want to talk about Mother, though. "And you're descended from whom, exactly?"

Kuvira laughs hollowly. "Certainly not any recent Avatar. Mine isn't an interesting family tree—but I'm more concerned with the future than the past."

"There's no underestimating the advantages of a solid foundation."

Kuvira looks down at the fabric swatches on the table, left behind by Odem for her consideration. "That's why I'm working on laying one," she says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand that marks the end of Part One.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An extra update this week, since I've managed to write a bit extra. Part Two begins.

**PART TWO**  
**Fire & Flammable Things**

 

It's strange, spending time one on one with Zuko after spending so much more of her first week in the Fire Nation with his sister. Azula still commandeers much of Kuvira's time, since she doesn't have all the official duties to attend to that the Fire Lord does.

"So," Zuko says, focusing too hard on the pouring of tea which Kuvira has already checked for metallic substances. That is all he says. The word is awkward. Virtually all his words are.

The pattern of awkward tea dates goes on for the next two weeks, as Zuko apparently attempts to compensate for squandering their first of four trial weeks together on denial.  

So they eat together. They spar, although it's an uncomfortable, overly hesitant dance, nothing like as much fun as Kuvira's match with Korra. Their conversations suffer much the same affliction. Kuvira tells a version of her victory at Ba Sing Se that doesn't include Baatar's death and the slicing, swallowing guilt she'd felt over it. Zuko tells a lot of stories about his admiration for his retired uncle, and for the absentee Avatar Aang.

They discuss Azula's ongoing recovery, and Zuko thanks Kuvira for her input. He sounds less grateful than she'd hoped, however. Perhaps, in the end, he can stand to see his sister whole no more easily than he can stand to see her broken.

Still, there are parts of him she finds herself almost liking; he is ferocious about standing up for what he cares about, in the same way Baatar had been—sort of like a small, fuzzy animal baring its teeth. Like Baatar, he's also clearly still searching for guidance. These things don't make it _easier_ to think about being with him, though; Zuko's ferocious loyalty won't be to her, the way Baatar's was. He won't turn to her for the guidance he needs. Every part of him that resembles Baatar is a version of Baatar that doesn't love her.

There's also the constant prickling unease that besets her whenever she's with Azula—even when they're just meditating in the garden at dawn, practicing katas, doing strength exercises to further Azula's recovery. Now that there's something else between them, it feels like it must be obvious to all suspicious eyes. This avenue of investigation is a more anxious one to go down than she'd anticipated. She doesn't stop, though, because it's been worthwhile so far. Azula, surprisingly, speaks much more revealingly than her brother. She is most obliging when they're sprawled together on of one of their respective beds, kissing and studying each other.

"Did you really come here so that you could join your empire to the Fire Nation?" Azula asks one evening, after work on the wedding menu has devolved into sarcastic argument and, in turn, found its way into Azula's private room.

Kuvira sits up, props a pillow behind her back, and looks down at the hills her knees make under the sheets.

"When I made my proposition, I didn't know for certain what I was going to do," she tells this truth because the longer she lies here in Azula's bed the more she wants to find an alternative to marrying Zuko. The more she allows herself to want that, even though wanting is a dangerous guide to decision-making. Here, in the midst of an affair that can't last, seems like the place to indulge that want. "I had ideas. _Have_ ideas. But it's hard to know how best to bargain with someone until you really know them."

"So you came here to scout," Azula surmises. "You've pledged an awful lot to Zuko in exchange for a little information."

"Information that could help my people get the life they deserve," Kuvira says—but she thinks, _Maybe I have offered too much_.

She shivers as Azula reaches over and combs fingers through her loose hair. The Princess pulls out Kuvira's hairpin—which is already dislodged and dangling from a handful of tangled strands—and puts it aside.

"If I marry Zuko," Kuvira says, and then curses herself for not saying _when_ —"will you still be here? Like you said Sozin and Roku were for each other?"

Azula tilts her head thoughtfully. "I have no desire to carry on with a married woman," she answers at last. "Not unless it's me she is married to. I don't settle for minor claims over things that belong to other people."

Kuvira is more disappointed than she should be, in that she is disappointed at all.

"I'll always _belong_ to _myself,_ " she says, leaning down to kiss Azula's lips—much pinker and less chapped now that her health is returning to her. "But there's one more week until Zuko's final answer is due. Until then I'm not technicallybetrothed to anyone."

Azula pulls her down and kisses her neck, bruisingly hard, as though to claim her as her own. Kuvira won't be _claimed,_ so she retaliates with an equal offensive of soft bites and hard fingers.

Later, she tries to imagine Zuko matching her in such a way, and can't. It's a shame Azula's not the Fire Lord, really. It's a thought Kuvira never expected to have, having heard about how mad the Princess went on the day of Sozin's comet—but all she's seen is a woman who saw things that weren't there _while poisoned_ , and smiled a little too gleefully during an execution. Azula is vicious, undeniably—but Kuvira has begun to wonder if tales of her insanity might be exaggerated.

 

ϟ

 

Zuko has never had all that much in common with Ty Lee. She was always so blindingly sunny of disposition, and always so unequivocally on Azula's side. Even when Azula threw stones at turtle-ducks, Ty Lee would stand behind her and issue compliments on her aim. Zuko had once observed her returning alone to the pond to feed the same poor creatures crumbs, but never once had she actually contradicted Azula.

Now, Zuko thinks, they have in common the broken faith of childhoods spent devoted to the wrong people. Ty Lee's eyes look so much colder now that he questions the knowledge they were always grey, wonders whether they couldn't have started out brown and soft like her hair and changed after she turned against Azula at the Boiling Rock.

Zuko runs into Ty Lee when they're both sleeplessly wandering one of the portrait galleries in the bowels of the palace. He finds her looking over the great ceiling-high tapestries of Fire Lords Sozin, Azulon, Ozai. A portrait of Zuko had been made in the same style when he took the throne, but he hasn't ordered it to be hung yet. It doesn't feel right to put himself in this company, nor does it feel right to try and scratch out the nation's history by taking those with destructive legacies down and rolling them up to gather dust in some storage room. It's a small struggle that reflects the bigger question of how Zuko is supposed to fill the Fire Lord's shoes in the first place, after their previous wearers have taken such heavy steps in such wrong directions.

"Azula and I used to sneak down here," says Ty Lee, looking up at the large woven form of Zuko's grandfather, whose signature blue flames burn motionlessly around his feet. "She'd tell me all about what her tapestry would be like. It was always changing; she had so many different ambitions she wanted to see enshrined."

"I can imagine."

"I can't quite believe that she'd really give all of that up. Do you believe it?"

It's hardly something Zuko hasn't pondered. All their lives Azula has been lying, fooling him and no shortage of others.

"I don't know," he says, honest words barely beginning to fill in the cavernous hall. They are both so small against the scale of this place. "She's not how she used to be... and people _do_ change."

Ty Lee laughs, the sound muted, not the high bubbly giggle he's always associated with her.

"I know they do, Zuko," she tells him, sounding almost grim—a tone which is proof in itself. "It's just a question of how much she's changed, how permanently, and most of all: _into what_. Don't take her word for anything."

"I _don't_ ," Zuko frowns, trying not to react too hotly to the implication that he is _too_ trusting. He doesn't trust all that many people—it's just he has no choice but to rely on them anyway. Cutting out and banishing the unreliable is a luxury a Fire Lord still struggling to grasp his rightful authority simply doesn't have. The people he can believe are few, and those he can confide in are even fewer.

If only Aang were here to turn to for advice...

...But the Avatar _isn't_ here. As far as the reports Zuko's been collecting are concerned, the Avatar isn't anywhere at all.

"I think maybe I should stay for a while," Ty Lee continues. "An extra pair of eyes on her can't hurt."

"What about the Kyoshi warriors?"

Ty Lee tears her eyes away from Azulon's portrait and finally turns to face Zuko.

"They of all people understand the need to be careful of the Princess."

 

 

"Ty Lee's going to be staying awhile," he tells Mai later, because they've been sitting in uncomfortable silence for too long. They're the first two to arrive for dinner, and the empty spaces that separate them at the table aren't any easier to think about now than they were three weeks ago when Kuvira first arrived and Azula was released. 

Mai picks up her knife and fork, turns them in her hand like she's contemplating throwing one or both at Zuko's neck. Part of him almost hopes she decides to do it.

"So?" she answers at last.

"So, I thought it might be nice for you to have a friend around," he tries.

Mai's scowl deepens. "Did you ask her to stay so I wouldn't be some lonely ex-girlfriend haunting your palace?"

"What? No! She decided to stay because she wanted to keep an eye on—"

The doors of the dining hall swing open and Zuko stops. It's Katara and Ty Lee who enter together. They're chatting amiably. The other waterbender, Korra, didn't return from Yu Dao with Katara after their last trip there. All Katara had had to say about it was _she made a new friend_ _and wanted to stay with her._

"—she wants to keep an eye on Azula," Zuko finishes.

Mai shrugs. "Whatever."

The table fills, seat by seat. Azula and Kuvira arrive together, both well-dressed but slightly less decorated than they usually look. They must have been training and changed for dinner in a hurry.

Zuko mulls over the few words Mai had offered him. He hadn't even considered that she might feel like a _lonely ex-girlfriend._ The occupants of the royal palace these days are a mixed bunch of friends, allies and enemies from all over the world, and there's certainly no need for Mai to be attached to anyone romantically in order to have a place here.

He hopes she doesn't leave. Sure, her family's main house is just outside the palace gates, but if she goes any further than that... Zuko isn't sure he'll be able to do what needs to be done if she leaves. Without Aang, without Uncle, and without Mai, he's not sure he'll be able to figure out what needs to be done at all. What's more, Mai is the only one who knows how to properly wrangle the High Generals and High Admirals, and the various other nobles whose loyalty Zuko depends on. Some, he knows, are genuinely glad to see Ozai gone from power and willing to follow Zuko as he steers away from Ozai's legacy as firmly as possible—but apparently keeping many of the others in line requires the right balance of bribery and blackmail. The way Mai had explained it: some people will never be driven by any feeling beyond self-interest. They deal in gold and privilege, not loyalty or inspiration—and it makes them both less reliable and more so.

He doesn't know how to keep her here—unless offering her an official position would help? He could make her a General—a Fire Sage? _Of course not, she isn't a firebender—_ no; an official advisor to the Fire Lord. There doesn't seem to be a title big enough to encompass all her input, other than outright declaring her Fire Lord.

Kuvira and Azula bring a conversation they've previously been having to the dinner table. They include him and he tries his best to integrate himself into it, but it's still painfully obvious that Azula understands Kuvira much better than Zuko does.

It's been a while since his sister came to him with an update on what she's learned about the Great Uniter, and Zuko's feeling restless, so he asks Azula to join him on a walk after dinner.

"A walk? How entirely unsuspicious," she remarks for everyone to hear—unhelpful even when she's actually helping him.

She joins him all the same. Her fitness has been returning, as quickly as everything has always come to Azula. She keeps a pace that makes Zuko slightly breathless in his more cumbersome robes.

"We've decided to emphasise gold and silver in the wedding decorations," she tells him.

"I want to know _useful things_."

"Like what?" She smirks at his exasperation, always taunting. "Did she tell you exactly what happened to her last fiancé? You should watch your back, Zuzu."

"Do you think she's going to try and take over the Fire Nation?"

"No offence, brother, but I don't think that woman could be convinced to wed herself to _you_ for any less than a doubling of her empire."

She's laughing, but Azula laughing is not the same thing as Azula joking. Zuko can't tell how seriously he should take her, especially when she's confirming fears he already almost believes in.

"This isn't funny, Azula. It's your nation she's threatening, too!"

"I know. And I amtaking this seriously. I think you're the one who's not. You've said you'll marry her but what have you done since then? Moped around the palace, gone on as many supposed diplomatic trips as possible, opened up about as much as a clenched crocodile-clam."

"Why should I confide in her if she's trying to take everything from me?"

Azula rolls her eyes. "You _shouldn't_ , dum-dum, but you have to make it look like you are if you want someone to open up in exchange."

Zuko throws his hands up. "I'm no good at this," he says.

"Obviously."

"You're not helping!"

"On the contrary; I am very helpful. And I'm only telling you the truth. _Someone_ has to provide you with a _balanced_ perspective."

Balance. Balance is not a word he associates with Azula. Balance is a word he associates with someone else.

"Aang would be able to provide a much more balanced perspective than you," he says bitterly.

Azula makes a thoughtful noise. "You're probably right," she says. "Since you seem reluctant to listen to me, maybe Avatar Aang _is_ the best person to talk some sense into you."

It's strange that Azula would agree. She's never had a kind word to say about the last airbender. Zuko can't think of a single thing they have in common, other than the fact they're both powerful.

"Well Aang's not here," he points out.

"Really? I hadn't noticed," she mocks, but then stops walking and takes hold of his forearm to stop him too. "What are you going to _do_ about the fact he's not here, Zuko?"

"What _can_ I do? He's gone. There are no reliable accounts of anyone seeing or hearing from him since just after he defeated Father. I've checked."

"You know what, Zuzu?" Azula sighs and tosses her loose hair out of her face impatiently. "You're not very bright. As usual, I've no idea how our parents managed to produce one child with so much talent and insight, and one with so little. There's perhaps only one thing you've ever been good at in your entire, heartbreakingly incompetent life. Do you know what that one thing is?"

Zuko lets the insults wash over him. They're nothing he hasn't been hearing his whole life, after all. He latches on to the one unusual concession in Azula's words instead.

The thing he succeeded at even when it was a hopeless mission meant to torment a teenage boy in exile.

"I need to find him again," Zuko says, giving voice to the revelation. "I might be the only one who can find the Avatar."


	10. Chapter 10

"I can't leave when Kuvira's here," Zuko frets. "There's only a week left until I have to confirm that I'll marry her. She's not going to wait. She'll bring the full strength of her army in to the colonies and then we'll have no choice but to back down or fight for all those people's homes—"

Azula holds a hand up to cut him off before he gets too carried away.

"I'll talk to her," she offers. "There's a chance she'll listen to me. She thinks we're friends, after all."

Zuko looks like he's having trouble processing that.

"Oh, don't be so surprised. I, unlike you, am a people person. I'll see if I can postpone the engagement and buy you some time."

"Why are you helping me?" he says at last, in a grudgingly accepting tone of voice Azula has always associated with _winning._

"You said it yourself," she replies easily, "this is my nation."

 

 

Kuvira finds her before Azula has to go searching. She's very pleased, really, with how well her seduction has turned out. They're in the portrait gallery, where Azula always liked to come and plot her future as a child. It is empty but not exactly a private space. Still, when Kuvira pulls her close and kisses her, Azula allows it. Kuvira's hands wander, at once reverent and demanding. Azula shivers under their attention. She has always loved to be worshipped, and the way Kuvira handles her body is but another variation on that theme. She has always loved to fight, and this is perhaps her second favourite method—after firebending, which will always be her first love. After all, enjoying the fight by no means indicates that she's not winning it.

She moans encouragingly into Kuvira's mouth.

"We should go somewhere more private." It's Kuvira who pulls back to suggest it. Azula agrees easily, already having thought along that line.

They walk together back up to the ground level of the palace, close enough to brush arms through the deserted areas and a civil distance through the rooms where they might well encounter someone. Azula knows which places are which, and Kuvira understands and cooperates without her having to explain it. It is quite a novelty to have someone whose reasoning can keep up with hers—both in the smaller matters and the larger ones.

Kuvira's room is closer, so that is where they go. Azula pushes her against the wall the moment they're inside. She'll never be as tall as Kuvira, but her muscles are already much more useful than they were when she was released from prison. They feel new and strong and she enjoys using them to pin Kuvira's hands up by her shoulders. In return, she offers her mouth for exploration. It's not long, however, until Kuvira pushes back, directing Azula towards the bed several steps away. Azula accepts her direction, because she knows she will benefit from what comes next.

"You will truly be _wasted_ on my brother," she gasps, fingers tight in the hair above Kuvira's ears, blunt nails digging into her scalp to cause little bursts of pleasurable pain, like minute electric shocks.

Kuvira huffs, raises her head to look at Azula. "Do we have to talk about your brother _right now_?"

"Sorry." Azula doesn't even try to sound as though she really is. "I was just thinking about a plan I devised which might postpone your unfortunate union with the unfortunate Fire Lord. Without you having to back out, obviously."

Kuvira moves away from her, sits up on the bed and looks pensive.

"Oh, come on," Azula whines. "There's no need to stop what you were doing. We're capable multi-taskers, are we not?"

"How long would it be postponed for?" Kuvira asks. She's definitely considering it. Good.

Azula shrugs. "However long you choose."

"How?"

"Zuzu wants his Avatar-shaped moral compass back. He needs your agreement if he's going take time out to go looking for it; give him whatever allotment of time you want."

"No one's seen the Avatar in a long time. He's vanished again, like he did at the beginning of the Hundred Year War. For all anyone knows he won't turn up for another century."

"It's not about _finding_ the Avatar." Azula reaches for Kuvira's hand and places it against her bare skin, a request. "What matters is that he'll leave us here while he goes off searching."

"I'll think about it," says Kuvira.

"You should." Azula pauses, fingertips dancing lightly over Kuvira's knuckles. "You should also resume kissing me immediately."

Kuvira is looming over her in one quick movement, straddling her and leaning down to do as she has been told. With her mouth and her hips and her hands Azula asks her to send Zuko away for a long, long time.

 

 

A servant knocks at the locked door of Kuvira's room as Azula is redressing.

"There's mail for you, Great Uniter."

Azula ducks around the corner as Kuvira goes to open the door and retrieve the scrolls.

"I guess my afternoon's work is set out for me," she says, once the servant has gone.

"What a shame," says Azula. "I'm sure I'll find something adequate to do without you."

That something happens to be retreating to a private corner of the palace gardens to continue with the training she will not do in front of Kuvira. She will not do it in front of anyone until she is certain she can execute every move.

She takes deliberate steps, leaps, punches and channels all the energy she can out through her extended fist. The flame that appears there is consistent now, although it is pale, lacking in intensity. It does not die out until she decides to extinguish it.

She swivels around and kicks high in the air, shooting more flames to help balance herself through the motion. She continues the high-speed routine for several minutes until she needs to catch her breath. Even as she walks the exertion off slowly, she keeps a little fire burning in her palm. It had taken two weeks to gather enough control to keep even a small flame like this obedient to her for any extended period of time.

As her lungs settle back into their normal rhythm, she takes a deep breath and focuses on harnessing the power within her, unlocking her muscles right out to her fingertips and drawing power from them, sending it to her palm. The fire burns higher, but that is not what Azula is aiming for. Rather than making the flames bigger, she compresses them, makes them hotter.

At last, streaks of blue flare up. Azula feels them intimately, treasures them even more than she had when she'd first achieved a blue flame as a child. Back then, she had been exceeding herself. Now, she is regaining herself—regaining something she has spent painful months missing. She feels almost whole again.

There is one more mountain to climb in order to return to her former strength, and she hasn't attempted it yet—but now that she has her blue flame, it might be possible. The thrill of bending again already pulses through her like electricity. If she can harness it—

Azula takes a strong stance, feet wide enough to ground her, and lets the energy build at her fingertips as her hands arc through the air around her. She searches her body again, but this time she does not stop after simply finding the energy. She looks insideit, dismantles it into its separate poles. It is harder to do than she remembers, but that is to be expected; just another disappointing weakness to be worked through.

It's only a small spark, but the lightning that crackles blue and bright at her fingertips has her buzzing, hanging high in a split second. It is a visceral, consuming anticipation almost akin to what she's felt in bed with Kuvira; the moment before an explosive climax. She pushes for more, and then finally for release. A bolt of lightning flies at a nearby tree, leaving a singed gash in the trunk and a branch full of leaves aflame.

But not all of it goes this way.

Azula feels like she has tried to leap out of herself and failed. She is falling forwards, kneecaps crunching against hard ground. Her chest clenches as though under a heavy weight. She manages to extend a hand to catch herself before her upper body smacks into the earth. On the bare skin of her forearm she catches sight of a pattern she knows well—a branding, a temporary scar of fine lightning fanning out over her flesh to mark her failure.

She is nine years old again and trying to stop crying after making lightning for the first time in her life. Her tears feel like they are crackling.

"Focus," says Father. "At birth you were gifted with the talent to achieve this, but it is your responsibility to master it and make it your own. Try again."

She is crying and she is not supposed to be. Crying is weakness, and weakness is never to be expressed. Crying literally clouds her sight. But her body does not feel quite her own, and the crying does not stop just because she wills it to. She drags her arms up, blinks the illicit tears out of her vision and sees a web of silvery pink markings on the skin from her wrists to her elbows, disappearing up into her sleeves.

Father notices them as she does.

"See, Azula?" he says. "You have what it takes to make lightning—but this time it has turned on you, marked you with the sign of its dominance. You must seize control. Clear your mind of everything but the desire to _win_ , and you will do so."

Azula wants to do as Father has told her more than anything, but her body feels too unnaturally tense, like trying to stretch her muscles will only pull them off her bones, pull the whole of her apart.

"Do it again," says Ozai. "Bend the lightning again, until you have made yourself its master! Do it again!"

The second time she cries less.

It is good that no one else is with Azula in the garden now. She blinks furiously, pulls herself to her feet and takes her stance again. She knows what is required to bend lightning now in a way she did not those ten years ago. It should be easier now than it was then.

Easier. Not easy—but then the whole point of being a prodigy is being able to do the things that aren't easy, and doing them better than everyone else. Sometimes pain is the cost of greatness, and enduring it is just another of Azula's many talents.

The next burst of lightning does not have as much force as the first, but all of it exits her and hits its now-smouldering mark.

 _Good, Azula_ , Father whispers in her ear. _Very good._

She does not answer him because she knows he isn't really there. She tries not to enjoy his praise, remembering how he passed over her on the day of the comet, leaving her behind to mind an obsolete crown.

But reality wavers and she is nine years old again, and his praise makes the exhaustion of hollowing her body out in training every day worthwhile. His praise is everything, and the more of it she has, the more she _is_.

 _Your goals have been secondary, Azula_ , Father's voice tells her. She doesn't remember him saying this to her as a child. It is not a memory. _Distraction, diversion and, above all, recovery. To pursue these same goals now that you are strong again would be a shameful sign of weakness. It is time to strive for more._

She thinks of her time in prison under the palace, thinks of the moment the ghosts haunting her finally disappeared and didn't return. She remembers sitting, arms curled forcibly against her body by a thick fabric wrap, legs crossed as comfortably as she could cross them with their crude shackles attached. She remembers breathing and thinking, feeling her lungs and her mind clear like the smoking after a wildfire had finally subsided.

 _You will never have the crown_ , she had thought to herself. _You will never be the Fire Lord, or dominate the earth. That battle is over._

Giving up had been the only kind of power she had left—something she had begun out of self-destructive wallowing and found unexpectedly liberating instead. The freedom of not being able to move an inch, the freedom of not being able to say a word, the freedom of not having to achieve a single thing. There had been no expectations. 

She had hardly been _unhappy_ to be released from the prison, but her meditation hasn't been as relaxed since. It had been like waking from sleep—conscious and in control of herself again, her freedom binds her in a different way. She has goals again now; potential, the wasting of which would be an inexcusable tragedy. The ghosts demanding to be her guides are the price of her second run along the path to greatness.

There was a surprising peace to be found in surrender when it was inevitable—like the restfulness of slipping into unconsciousness. But it is impossible to give up on the things that she has worked for all her life when she is on her feet again, blue light blazing at her fingertips.

 _You will have the crown_ , she thinks to herself. _You deserve that crown._

 

ϟ

 

She should have seen this coming.

Her correspondence with Bolin has thinned recently, although she's mostly attributed it to his interest in writing florid letters declining at last. But if the message she's received from Long Guon, the new foreman of the Dai Li, is to be believed, it's Bolin's interest in Kuvira's agenda that has declined.

 _Your first officer has been occupied with a young visitor to the upper ring,_ writes Long Guon. _She claims to hail from Gaoling, and to be familiar with Toph Beifong. I have concerns about her influence, but Bolin is adamant that the Dai Li should not eject her from the city. I seek your leave to override his orders and remove this 'Opal' from Ba Sing Se._

Kuvira stops short at the mention of that name. It floods her mind: a short black bob, bright green eyes, intricate silver necklaces, timid stuttering that had been gradually hammered down into a headstrong fury just like Suyin's. Nights spent talking like sisters, back before the Earth Empire arose. Venomous words hurled back and forth, after its expansion had begun.

Long Guon had been a good choice to replace Long Feng as Grand Secretariat—but if his loyalty is the strongest thing Kuvira has to rely upon from back at the walled city, then her control is growing too tenuous for her liking.

She looks back at the letter.

_Alternatively, my agents have gathered enough evidence to charge her with sedition, if not treason, and have her re-educated. Please advise on whether we should proceed._

Kuvira thinks of Opal, spouting spiteful things taught to her by Su, masking them with an innocent smile and swaying good-natured Bolin with a batting of the eyelashes.

She thinks of Opal strapped to a chair in the dark caves of her main re-education camp under Lake Laogai, hypnotic lantern tracing its circular path until all the things that make Opal a dissenter are erased. She feels ill.

Thanks to her acquisition of the Dai Li, Kuvira has access to _the_ most effective method of shaping people's wills—but it is invasive in a way that she is silently uncomfortable with; it is a permanent disfiguring of the mind, and she won't use it _indiscriminately—_ especially not against her own citizens. She would rather her people saw the light and understood for themselves that she is doing the right thing for them, instead of being made to watch the Dai Li's light.

Su has her own array of methods, and she has stooped so low as to send her daughter to do her dirty work this time.

Kuvira writes back to Long Guon:

_Do not under any circumstances re-educate Opal. If you can arrest her quietly, without Bolin suspecting what has been done, then that should be your course of action. Above all, do not let Bolin leave the city with her. I will be on my way back to Ba Sing Se at the earliest available opportunity._

_Your loyalty will be rewarded._

She hopes it will be enough to hold down the fort until she can leave the Fire Nation without jeopardising the opportunities she's been cultivating here. She hates how far beyond her reach Ba Sing Se feels right now. It _is_ very far away, right at the other end of the whole Earth continent on the map, even after the sea between the Fire Nation and its soon-to-be formercolonies is bridged. It is slightly closer if one heads in the opposite direction, west of the Fire Nation, but neither those vast oceans nor that airspace are forgiving, even to empire-class battleships and airships. Chances of arrival at one's destination, let alone arrival in any shape to fight and win a battle, are insufficient. There is a reason Sozin attacked the Earth Kingdom from its western side even though taking Ba Sing Se first would have been more glorious and more or less established global dominance in a single move.

With all of her forces needed around the colonies, their presence holding the tension there, promising that the Earth Empire won't give an inch, Kuvira doesn't know whether she'll be able to retake Ba Sing Se if she loses her hold over it—to rebels or to its own insular power systems.

Kuvira oversees the attachment of her letter to the back of a messenger hawk, and asks one of the servants to inform Zuko that she'd like to meet with him about his upcoming journey.


	11. Chapter 11

Four weeks. Kuvira gives Zuko another four weeks. It's both more time than he'd hoped and less time than he'll need.

His small travelling bag is all packed before he even realises that bringing Uncle over from Ba Sing Se will probably take at least a third of the time he's been given. Ba Sing Se is a long trip from the Fire Nation even by airship, and Uncle will be reluctant to leave his tea shop. Zuko will either have to have a series of difficult arguments via mail, or go personally to convince Uncle to step in as interim Fire Lord—and leaving to do that will have the same effect as simply leaving to find Aang in the first place.

 _Four weeks, beginning immediately_ , Kuvira had said. _As proof of my generosity._

"So," says Mai from the doorway, and Zuko turns to face her with a start. "Whatever you're planning, I can tell you right now it's stupid."

"I'm going to find the Avatar," he says defensively.

"Told you."

"The world needs someone to restore balance. That's the Avatar's job."

"Yeah, yeah," Mai doesn't dispute that. "But does it have to be _your_ job to find him? You've got responsibilities here, Zuko. You've got more responsibilities than anyone."

"I know—and I _hate_ it. You know much more about the day-to-day of what it takes to be Fire Lord than I do. I just thought I could do the right thing—but it turns out the right thing and the wrong thing aren't always so easy to tell apart."

Mai steps into the room and touches his shoulder. It's hardly the most intimate of gestures, but it's still more than he's had from her lately, and he savours the small weight of her hand there. He wishes he could appoint _her_ interim Fire Lord, but Mai has no claim to the throne. There are two people left, aside from Zuko himself, who do. Three, if you count the monster buried in a cell under the palace, which he doesn't. Four, if you count the woman who disappeared when Zuko was just a child, which there's little use in doing. If none of them existed then he _might_ be able to convince his councils to honour a non-family appointment, but they do exist, and he doesn't have the time to orchestrate anything that complicated.

"So Azula's going to be Fire Lord, huh," Mai says, obviously having worked through the logic of it all in her head—probably much faster than Zuko had managed. "I'm sure that's going to go swimmingly."

"There's no other option," he sighs as she pulls her hand away from him. "And it's only _interim_ Fire Lord."

"Don't be an idiot, Zuko." The acid in her voice is sudden and scalding. "Of course there's another option: you stay here and do your job, instead of running off on a whim to find someone who's probably dead."

"He's _not_ dead," Zuko replies, trying not to shout. Aang is alive. He _knows_ it. "He's not dead and it's my destiny to find him. Azula's the only one who can sit on the throne while I'm gone, but she's not her old self. You'll be here to make sure she doesn't overstep—and to make sure the Generals and Admirals stay on side—won't you?"

Mai rolls her eyes. "It's not like I have a choice."

 

ϟ

 

Katara catches Zuko on his way out of the palace, servants trailing behind him with what is all in all a rather small travel bag for a Fire Lord. His outfit is devoid of finery; he looks more like a simple Earth Kingdom man than the sovereign of the world's wealthiest nation. His hair, long enough to touch his shoulders now, is tied back into its topknot with a simple band.

"Going somewhere?" she asks, stepping out of the shadows from which she'd been observing him. She enjoys his startled jump.

"Katara," he stammers. "What are you doing here?"

She crosses her arms. "You invited me to stay here, remember?" she says, even though she knows that's not what he meant to ask.

"No," he says, exasperated. "I _mean_... never mind."

Katara wonders whether it will ever not be amusing prodding Zuko's temper. It's just about the only fun she gets to have around here—although Ty Lee has been a surprisingly good friend of late.

"You're clearly leaving on some sort of business, and you had intended to do it without ever telling me," Katara says. She has her suspicions about what that might mean, but it's hard to know that her mind isn't just jumping to conclusions about the Avatar because of her history with Aang.

But Zuko confirms it; "The world needs its Avatar right now. Everything's still out of balance. Kuvira's given me some time to try and track him down before I have to come back and address the wedding situation."

The wedding, which Katara still thinks is the worst idea _ever_ , even though she grew up listening to Sokka's ideas.

There's a little twist in her chest, a bitter taste in her mouth that's surprisingly literal. Maybe part of it is jealousy at the idea that Zuko might be able to find Aang when she hasn't been able to—but most of the feeling isn't that.

"Well, I hope you find what you're looking for," she says, and turns on her heel.

"Katara, wait."

She stops, but doesn't turn back to look at him.

"Keep an eye on things, please?"

Katara doesn't need to be asked to know that _someone_ needs to do that.

"I will. Keep yourself safe, Zuko."

"I will," he promises.

But if Katara's learned one thing over the years, it's that neither of them can guarantee anything.

 

 

Katara is bending water from one of the turtle-duck ponds, watching the creatures squawk indignantly as she confuses them with bubbles and little showers of rain, when Ty Lee sneaks up on her. The Kyoshi warrior is very quiet on her feet—and on her hands, if she decides to walk on those instead.

"They're so cute," she points to the turtle-ducks and smiles wistfully.

"They are. They sort of remind me of the otter-penguins back home."

"Do you get to visit your home very much?" Ty Lee sits down in the grass next to the pond, and reaches out to dip a hand into the water, swirling it around. Katara partially freezes the thin layer on the surface around it for just a second, teasing.

Ty Lee squeaks and withdraws the hand in surprise. She laughs, though. Katara likes Ty Lee's laughs. When Azula is not around, or when the subject of her isn't marring the conversation, Ty Lee can be almost as cheerful as she once was. Bringing that cheer out in her makes Katara feel almost as hopeful as she used to.

"I went back for a few months, but it was different. Or maybe it wasn't, but I was. I felt frozen—and not in the cold sense. Just... trapped. I'll visit again soon, but..."

"You've been travelling the world. I think it makes perfect sense that it's hard to go back. It's hard for all of us to be normal after the war. I know _I_ barely know what normal means."

Katara sits beside Ty Lee.

"Normal," she says, ruminating on the word. "War isn't something that should be considered normal, but now that it's ended I've realised I don't know a lot about peace."

Ty Lee is still swishing her hand about in the pond. The motion of it is soothing for Katara to watch, the way the water strokes her smooth skin. Katara reaches out with her bending and asks the water to tell her what the touch feels like.

"Only really, _really_ old people could possibly know what life was like before the war," she nods. "The rest of us are trying to revert to something we've never known to begin with."

They sit and listen to the birdsong in the air for a while. Katara admires the intricate twists of Ty Lee's hair, wonders idly whether she does it herself or has someone else do it. She thinks of the time Aang tried to do her hair for her; he was hopeless at it, as she should have expected a boy with no hair on his own head to be.

"Did you know Zuko was going to try and find Aang?" she asks, when the question gnaws at her despite her best efforts to subdue it.

"Nope," replies Ty Lee. "Who would have told me?"

 _Azula_ , Katara doesn't suggest.

"You were close with Mai, weren't you?" she says instead.

Ty Lee sighs. "Sort of. But only because of... mutual connections. Besides, she's not really the gossiping type. I usually have to ask pretty specific questions if I want her to tell me things. Like questions with _yes_ or _no_ answers."

Katara's noticed the way Ty Lee never refers to Azula as her friend. She hasn't been sure whether this is because she's pointedly forgetting whatever relationship they used to have, or because that relationship was something other than friendship.

"Anyway. I don't think Zuko will succeed," she steers the conversation back away from the suggestion of the Princess, because she doesn't want Ty Lee's face to fall any further.

"You sound pretty sure about that," Ty Lee observes. "You sound like you don't _want_ him to succeed. I mean—um. Sorry. I didn't mean that."

She's right, though. Katara wants so badly to tell someone the truth, and if Ty Lee already thinks she knows, it's not so hard just to confirm it for her.

"Can I tell you something? If you'll promise not to repeat it to anybody?"

"Sure! I love knowing secrets."

"When Aang left," Katara begins, slowly and carefully like she's treading over untested ice, "at first I was so lost. I believed that he would come back, but I just didn't know when, or what I was supposed to do in the meantime. I assumed all my sadness came from missing him—but the longer he was gone the more I figured out that that wasn't entirely true. It was supposed to be everything I'd wanted, all through the war—Aang and I, together. But I remember the day that I woke up and thought to myself, _We're never going to get married after all_. It felt so backwards, like instead of losing hope, I'd found it. Secretly, I think there's nothing like getting what we think we want to make us realise that we actually, maybe _don't_ want it as much as we thought."

Ty Lee answers with silence at first. It's attentive silence, though; Katara can practically feel her listening.

"That's a really wise way of thinking about it all," Ty Lee says at last, looking across at Katara utterly without judgment. "And you shouldn't feel bad about it. Maybe Aang even feels the same way, and that's why he left!"

Katara frowns. "But if that's true, then it's my fault the world is without its Avatar."

"You're not responsible for his feelings as well as yours, and most of all you're not responsible for how he deals with them," Ty Lee assures her.

Which is... a really wise way of thinking about it all. She thanks Ty Lee with a warm smile. It's nice to have someone she can talk to again.

She notices Ty Lee picking at her fingernails, which are covered in chipped Kyoshi-green varnish, and has an idea. A juvenile idea that gives her an inexplicable burst of the optimism she's been so lacking in.

"Hey, want to do makeovers?"

Ty Lee positively lights up, and Katara is so very glad she asked.

 

ϟ

 

Bolin likes Opal, he really does—but there's something a little off about her. One minute she's all cute and shy and stammering, and the next she's looking at him like a snake ready to strike. Usually after he says something about Kuvira. Sometimes it seems like Opal understands where Kuvira's coming from—understands why Bolin works for her, to help the people of the Earth Empire. But sometimes—increasingly often—it seems like the opposite is true.

Bolin likes Opal. He likes her a lot. She's smart and funny and pretty and a really good fighter despite being a nonbender, and her eyes are so bright, and—

He likes her, but he doesn't quite know whether he can trust her.

In the weeks since Kuvira left for the Fire Nation, certain areas of the outer ring have been growing particularly restless. Bolin's been out there himself to oversee things a few times, although it's a long train ride and he's usually busy with a lot of appointments at the palace (he gets to sit _on the throne_ , like a king. Or... not a king. Kuvira's not a huge fan of kings). The daily list of things needing attention that Long Guon brings him seems to be longer every morning. Bolin has barely even had the chance to go and visit Mako, Grandma and all his cousins. Mako, as a firebender, isn't allowed to come into the upper ring.

Bolin disagrees with that, because of course _Mako_ isn't going to make any trouble—but there are enough Fire Nation refugees coming to Ba Sing Se that citizenship processes have been slowed down. Bolin's looked at all the forms that have to be filled out to certify people, and they're really, really long sheets of paper. So it's understandable that they're taking a while, right? Until people can be fully certified, they have to stay in certain areas in the lower ring; Kuvira says it's for everyone's safety, and that a Fire Nation plot to overthrow Ba Sing Se would almost definitely be carried out by sending attackers into the city disguised as harmless-looking refugees. Many of the refugees are defectors from the Fire Nation army, so while they might not be doing any harm, it _is_ kind of hard to think of them as harmless.

All the refugees Bolin's met so far have seemed like really honest people, even if some are a little rough. Everyone's a little rough after the war. Growing up with Mako on the streets of Yu Dao, Bolin knows all too well that a person being of Fire Nation descent doesn't mean they agree with anything Fire Lord Ozai did.

But then, Bolin hadn't yet joined the Earth Empire movement when Azula and her friends infiltrated the city and managed to sneak all the way into the palace. Kuvira _was_ here when it happened, and something like that is bound to make a person pretty wary of who they let through their doors. Ba Sing Se has always been known as one of the few truly safe places for Earth folk. She's just trying to make sure it stays that way.

The result of all this is the fact that it's a lot harder to get into (and especially out of) the lower ring than it was before—not that it was ever too easy. There are big fences that Kuvira and those of her soldiers who've successfully learned to metalbend (Bolin has _tried_ to pick it up, but he just isn't one of those specially-talented people) put up separating certain lower ring suburbs now, and even bigger gates to pass through in order to reach the train. Just when Bolin thinks he's got time to ready his passport, book tickets and make that lengthy trip down to the lower ring, Long Guon or Joo Dee or Zhu Li or Varrick or _someone_ will always show up with more 'super important' jobs for him to do. Usually it's just authorising things with a signature, which only he can do since Kuvira appointed him her second-in-command.

Sometimes, when he's working his way through a tall pile of documents, Bolin likes to pretend he's signing autographs.

_Why yes, Mister Lih, of course I'll sign this scroll for you! I would never want any of my loyal fans to be without the extra rations they need! Congratulations on your new child—if I may suggest a name..._

He hasn't seen that much about the unrest in the firebender settlements in the lower ring in the past several days, though. Long Guon says it's been resolved, so maybe everyone finally talked it out.

Opal is waiting for him when he gets back to his upper ring residence after one such busy day of signing things. She's bought dinner for them.

He sniffs the air. "Crab puffs!" he exclaims. "I love crab puffs!"

Opal giggles. "I know that, silly; it's why I bought them."

They sit at the table and eat straight out of the cartons. The crab puffs are _really_ good. Bolin shows his appreciation with a long groan.

"I haven't found any vendors in the upper ring who make crab puffs this amazing," he says. "Where did you get these?"

"They're actually not from the upper ring," Opal explains. "I got them from a place near one of the middle ring stations, on my way back in from the outer ring."

Bolin chews as much of the generous mouthful he's just taken as is necessary to get the words out around it, then says, "How's it all going down there? Long Guon says things are better now."

Opal snorts derisively. "Better? They're herding all the firebenders out of the city! Dragging them out. Whole districts are in uproar over it."

Bolin almost spits the next bite of crab puff all over the table. Surely he's misheard her. Nobody could have given an order to kick refugees out of the city! Bolin certainly hasn't, and he's supposed to be in charge here. Kuvira wouldn't either. Would she?

" _What?_ No, they couldn't do that. I would need to sign an order if something like that was going to be done—which, for the record, I would never do. My brother is a firebender—" the full implication of Opal's report hits him like one of the express trains that traverse the city. " _All_ of the firebenders? Are you sure? Opal, you have to tell me everything you know about this."

Opal nods seriously. That look has come over her again—the one that seems to warn him she'll bite. It's... kind of scary. But what's really scary is the thought of losing Mako.

"You know what," he says, grabbing his dinner and his passport, "tell me while we're on our way. We're going to the outer ring _right now_."


	12. Chapter 12

"I didn't tell you this before," says Opal, "but I grew up with Kuvira. She was like an older sister to me."

And suddenly it's very clear to Bolin exactly who this mysterious (and talented, and pretty) young woman is.

"You're Suyin's daughter!" he almost shouts, but she hushes him and he reins the volume in at the last minute. The other passengers on the crowded train don't seemto take note of the outburst.

"Yes, I am," Opal replies, at a whisper. "But I'm also my own person—a person who believes Kuvira is taking things too far. I know you believe she has people's best interests in mind, and I think she's still trying to do the right thing, some of the time. I know the girl I grew up with had a good heart. But she's got so much power now that it's changing her. It's going to her head. The Earth Empire should have been a temporary measure during the war—it shouldn't be grappling for power over the Fire Nation."

Bolin frowns. Some of what she's said he can understand pretty easily—Kuvira has been tougher and tougher since the war, and not always in ways Bolin's felt totally comfortable with. But Kuvira's gone to the Fire Nation to see Zuko and bargain for the return of land that should never have been under his nation's control in the first place, not to try and take land that actually _does_ belong to the Fire Nation. Because that would be crazy. That would be basically the same thing Sozin did when he started the hundred year war.

As soon as their train emerges from the tunnel through to the outer ring, it's clear that something's wrong. There's smoke rising into the air, flames flaring up above roof level every now and then, rocks being flung into the air. He can hear the commotion from here. There are police swarming all around the train station.

"We're sorry," they say mechanically. "Nobody's getting on or off at this stop today."

 

ϟ

 

Azula wears a long-sleeved undershirt for her morning meditation, to cover the lightning marks that crawl up her arms and spread their jagged little fingers out across her shoulders, in over the collarbone. After returning to her room, she hastily swaps it for a clean one of the same cut before she allows the servants in to dress her properly. The layers of silk and the pointed shoulder armour are heavy attire in warm seasons such as this, but they are the clothing of the Fire Lord. Clothes she had made for her some time ago. Azula fingers the hairpiece Zuko left behind, pressing its various points against the pads of her fingers. It isn't sharp, _per se_ , but she can still think of a multitude of ways to kill with it. It is just the accessory she wants.

"Princess—" one of the servants dressing her says, obviously wanting her to stretch out her arms to make the process easier.

"That's _Fire Lord_ ," she corrects. She may only be Zuko's agent at this point, but she's acting with the authority of the Fire Lord. She wants to make that much clear.

On her first coronation day, she would have banished the servant for such an offense, and the girl's now-shaking hands suggest knowledge of that fact. But there will be no willy-nilly banishments today—not for small mistakes and not for greater slights either. She's learned a thing or two since she last acted as Fire Lord—most importantly, the value of keeping her enemies close.

"Your highness," another servant knocks at the door.

"Go and see what he wants," she tells one of the women attending to her.

She returns with news that Mai would like to see her. She's surprised Mai is awake at all; it's only three hours after dawn.

Azula sighs. In the past she'd certainly have banished Mai, who has already shown her propensity for betrayal and her favour for Zuko.

Part of Azula suspects, however, that Mai had simply seen the writing on the wall as far as Ozai and Azula's fates were concerned—seen it before Father or Azula herself had. Always a cunning political mind, it's not impossible that Mai only clung to Zuko because she calculated the odds and decided he and his little team of Avatar-following friends were the surest bet. It seems characteristic; Mai has never been the kind of person who'd invest in a thing like _love_ over logic. She, like Azula, was raised in the understanding that power is the most important commodity in life.

She invites Mai to visit her rooms before breakfast, where they can be certain of privacy. If in fact Mai wishes to attack her, Azula has the secret of her regained bending on her side. She will be alert, and can make short work of a traitor if necessary.

Mai arrives with tea, which she carries in herself, on a small tray. The teapot is an ugly, plain thing that looks like it's come from a peasant's hovel in Ba Sing Se, and Azula just _bets_ it's a gift from Zuko, imbued with some insipid significance by his tendency for melodrama.

"What is this?" Azula asks, as Mai goes about putting the cups on the dresser, and pouring dark liquid into them.

"Exactly what it looks like," Mai says in her usual toneless voice. "Tea."

Azula rolls her eyes. "Zuko may need you to explain every obvious thing to him, but I assure you I do not. What I want to know is _why_ you've brought me tea that looks like it was made by and for Earth Kingdom peasants."

Mai passes her a steaming cupful and takes a seat on the lounge at the edge of the room before she bothers to answer.

"I made it myself," she says. "Using a method Zuko taught me."

Azula takes a sip and finds the tea even more bitter and awful than expected. For the sake of her dignity alone she resists spitting it back into the cup, and swiftly puts the abominable drink on the floor out of her sight.

"Well, either he was a terrible teacher, or what he was teaching wasn't worth learning. I'm inclined to believe both are true."

She notes that Mai hasn't touched her own cup. She knows how bad it is, evidently.

"That's my point," says Mai. "Zuko..." her sigh moves her shoulders up and down visibly. "He has these good intentions. I thought that would be enough, but it isn't. And now he's left me for someone else _twice_ in the space of a month, I don't have much reason left to choose caring for him over doing what makes logical sense for me. If I know you—and I think I _do_ —you're not going to let this appointment be as temporary as Zuko intends it to be."

Azula smiles. The satisfaction of finding out she's read a person correctly never really gets old.

"Well, Mai, you understand that your past actions have given me reason never to rely upon you again, don't you?"

Mai nods silently. She may not be trustworthy, and Azula has no plans to trust anyone, ever—but she needs people on her side, and Mai has always been a very valuable ally. Mai, who effectively coordinates all relevant nobles and personnel in the Fire Lord's small council.

"It so happens that I am turning over a new leaf," Azula continues. "I know you are intelligent, despite the _lapse in judgment_ that caused your dalliances with my brother. You've seen sense, and I'm willing to pardon your earlier transgressions if your loyalty to me remains _unwavering_ from this point on."

Mai looks her in the eye. She doesn't smile, but this does not mean she isn't pleased.

"Thank you, Azula," she says. "I hope you'll see fit to confide in me again someday."

"I'm glad you've seen sense," Azula tells her, as kindly as she ever speaks to anyone.

Mai leave the room without taking her awful tea. Azula is tempted to kick the cup over onto the carpet, but then she'll have to endure servants invading her space to clean it up. She sits and ponders the next thing that needs to be done. She thinks of her brother traipsing around like the lowliest wanderer, probably happier than he has been in a long time, filled with hope by the thought of seeing his beloved Avatar again.

It's too bad he never will.

A flicker of discomfort races unbidden through her mind at the thought of Zuko lying in the dirt, finally finished for good. He is her brother, and at this point the removal of Zuzu from the picture won't lead to Father bestowing any greater share of his approval upon Azula. She's tried to kill him before, but that has always been her motive. Now getting rid of him will just open up more empty space around her.

There's no questioning whether or not it must be done, though—not when the most crucial empty place left behind will be on the throne. After everything he did to humble her, to break her, there's absolutely no reason she should feel _any_ hesitation. He has always seen her as the enemy—ever since she proved herself a firebending prodigy and he struggled to master the moves taught to him. She had been competitive as a child, but he had been the one who brought bitterness to their rivalry. He made her his enemy before she ever made him hers. He declared war, and so since then she has fought back the way she was always taught to: without mercy.

Possessed by a bizarre curiosity, she picks up the cup of tea Mai had made according to Zuko's recipe, puts it to her lips and tips the entire contents into her mouth. She coughs as the vile liquid makes its way down, the taste lingering on her tongue.

Yes. Zuko's performance as Fire Lord has been just as poor as his tea-making skills—neither are adequate, and Azula's country does not deserve the shame her brother brings upon it. She will _not_ regret doing what must be done—and Zuko's terrible tea-making practices will live on to remind her of why.

She pens a letter on plain paper in an inconspicuously sloppy hand and attaches it to one of the scruffier palace hawks, clad in only the most ordinary harnessing. If it finds its recipient well, she'll soon be making a trip down out of the Caldera for the first time since before the comet.

 

ϟ

 

At breakfast, Kuvira learns that Zuko is already gone. It's only been a day since she offered him an extension on the grace period before their official engagement; he has certainly made his arrangements quickly. She knows it isn't easy to up and leave when your empire needs a leader to look to within its borders; appointing Bolin as her stand-in had hardly been a decision she'd been happy about having to make.

Azula is already in the garden, sitting with her legs folded and her eyes shut, so Kuvira silently joins her under the dawn's flattened, orangey clouds. She waits for the Princess to declare the session finished before she asks about the appointment of an agent to attend to Zuko's business in his absence.

"So who is it?" she asks. Mai seems like a fairly obvious choice, although it all depends on how the Fire Nation's systems work; whether just anybody is eligible. Monarchies and their obsessions with bloodlines.

"Meet me in the throne room after breakfast and I'll introduce you," says Azula, her face unreadable. If Zuko's stand-in is someone Kuvira doesn't know, then maybe it's one of the Generals.

 

At breakfast, Azula looks even more well-dressed than she does ordinarily—shoulder padding heavier than usual, more silk draping off her. Ty Lee and Katara aren't at the table, so it's just Mai, Azula, and Kuvira. The other two discuss some disagreement amongst the High Admirals, neither one of them mentioning the temporary Fire Lord by name.

Once the meal is over, Azula rises from the table and beckons for Kuvira to come with her. It isn't far to the throne room from here.

"Is there anything I should know about this person before meeting them?" she asks the Princess.

"Hmm. No, I think you know enough already."

Kuvira frowns in confusion at that, but she decides she'll just have to wait and see what Azula's cryptic answers are about.

The throne room is deserted when they arrive. There are none of the huge roaring flames Kuvira's heard stories about—the only fires burning at present are in the small lanterns that line the walls.

Azula's hand dives into her pocket, emerging with a piece of flattened gold. She passes it to Kuvira, who looks at her questioningly.

"Would you help me with my hairpiece, please?" the Princess asks. The crisply-cut metal is actually quite heavy, Kuvira observes, as she fits it in place in Azula's topknot. Somehow holding it for herself makes it seem larger.

Azula takes a few steps away from her then, before making a sudden movement. Kuvira almost readies herself for a fight as bright flashes of light explode out of Azula's hands. They rush at the floor around her until the floor itself catches alight, a chain reaction that runs around the edges of the room.

 _Now_ Kuvira sees what the stories were about.

"You can firebend again?" She's not sure how she missed it—or how much she likes the idea of Azula keeping it from her. It's stupid to think that she'd tell Kuvira everything, just because they've been sleeping together for a few weeks. Kuvira knows that. But regaining her bending is something Kuvira's been helping her work towards.

"It's only a recent development," Azula says, which placates Kuvira to some degree, "but yes, I can."

"Congratulations." Kuvira looks at the bright, moving sheets of yellow and orange, feeling the temperature in the room rise by several degrees. "It's beautiful," she says, almost by accident.

The edge of Azula's mouth pulls upwards, pleased by the admission.

"These are ordinary flames," she says dismissively. "Any old firebender can manage them. But _these_..." She stretches her arms out on either side of her and pulls up towards the ceiling. The blue begins at the bottom of the flames and rises, growing until the entirety of the light is the colour of a clear Earth Empire sky. It's strange that that's what Kuvira is reminded of; the two things could hardly be more different.

"I have a proposal for you," says Azula, as the shadows cast by dancing flames lick at her skin.

Kuvira waits while the Princess indulges her theatrics. If they're going to be talking business, she needs to stop paying attention to how entrancing Azula's fire is. Distraction, intimidation—the Great Uniter doesn't fall for the oldest tricks in the book.

"How would you like to marry the Fire Lord?" Azula asks.

Some of the firelight catches on the polished face of her hairpiece, and Kuvira realises all of a sudden that it isn't the one she usually wears at all. It all makes a kind of sense she should have seen coming a mile away. The Fire Lord's sister; of _course._ Monarchies, and their obsessions with bloodlines.

"If you mean the _stand-in_ Fire Lord, then I'm not sure I can help you," Kuvira replies calmly.

Azula raises a hand to rest her chin upon. "I meant exactly what I said. I've no intention of giving this seat back up—not even if dearest Zuzu does make it home." She looks up through her lashes, painted lips twisting into perhaps the most lascivious smirk Kuvira has ever seen. "Which I have the most peculiar inkling he might not."

"What do you mean?" she asks, brain already scrambling to reassess everything. She's good at this, at adapting, in battle at least. But the implication of Azula's words is heavier than any news Kuvira had been expecting to receive today.

"You're a smart woman, Kuvira," Azula says, stepping towards her once more, rubbing gently at the collar of Kuvira's robe. The sensual touch is at odds with the hard look in her eyes. "I'm sure you can figure out what I mean. You should also find it easy enough to figure out how to respond to my proposal; I am offering you just what you want, after all. An alliance with the Fire Lord—a competent Fire Lord. _And_ ," Azula pauses her speech in favour of using her tongue to draw a hot line up Kuvira's neck. She finds herself strangely aware of the proximity of that mouth to her jugular. Azula only relents once she's satisfied with the racing of Kuvira's pulse. "More of this," she finishes, but her blunt nails keep scraping across the same skin her mouth has just touched, until Kuvira can't contain the shudder teased out by the tortuously light pressure.

"Can I take some time to consider this proposal?" Kuvira asks. Her own voice sounds unexpectedly husky.

"Of course," Azula replies. "I'm nothing if not accommodating. You may have until this time tomorrow to decide whether you'd prefer to accept my proposal or prepare to fight another war. I'm confident you won't need that long. Just picture it: together we will be the strongest couple in the entire world."

There's certainly no more feeling around in the dark for some kind of solution now. Kuvira has her options laid out plainly in front of her, and there is really only one worth taking. It's her very own proposal mirrored back at her—and Azula's kind of right; it _is_ all the things Kuvira finds she wants, albeit wrapped up together with a shipment of explosives.

She looks around at the blazing throne room, the heart of the palace built inside a volcano. At the fabrics that cover Azula's body and her own, line the floor, and hang from the walls. This is the home of both fire and flammable things—and there has only ever been one answer to the question of which Kuvira should choose to be.


	13. Chapter 13

Zuko begins his search the way he'd begun after his banishment: at the Western Air Temple, the closest Air Nomad site to the Fire Nation. He searches the ruins for a few days, poking around every pile of rubble in case it hides a secret tunnel. There are an awful lot of piles of rubble after his last visit here—scars left on the ancient buildings by both the assassin he'd hired and his fratricidal sister.

He runs his hands over the cold, cracked concrete as he goes, and pictures the past. The distant past, where there would have been many of Aang's people walking sedately around the upside-down temple, meditating, laughing and causing mischief together, flying around the cliffside on their gliders. This place would have been bright with red and yellow robes, bright blue tattoos shining on shaven heads. He wonders whether the Air Nomads had traditional music, and what it might have sounded like. He imagines deep voices chanting, cymbal rolls that feel like a gentle shaking of the universe—but it's nothing more than a groundless fantasy. The only things he was ever taught about the Air Nomads were the lies of the Fire Nation's history books. He'll have to ask Aang about his people's music when he finds him again.

Not for the first time, he thinks about how close the world came to losing every last piece of Air Nomad culture forever—an entire quarter of the four nations' diversity, destroyed. He feels the shame of his ancestors, of Sozin, more acutely than ever as he wanders the sacred places that his great-grandfather's armies so brutally emptied. And the world is still in great danger of losing everything airbender—if Zuko doesn't find Aang, doesn't help him rebuild his civilisation however he can, then the last of the Air Nomads will die out and Sozin's genocidal work will finally be complete.

The temple is peaceful; there are no sounds to be heard except for the occasional tittering of birds, the rushing of the wind through the shapes carved into the cliff face, the crunching of Zuko's own feet over the dusty stone. Plants spring up here and there in the cracks. _Life, even where the Fire Nation has brought so much death_ , he thinks. He also thinks, _Uncle would like it here_.

The first time he had come here, it had been with Uncle. He hadn't given an ear to anything the old man had said, though. One ear had been melted like wax and strapped haphazardly with gauze, along with his eye; the other had simply been deaf to all suggestions of reason. Zuko's glad that he has better memories of this place now too.

"Hi, Zuko here," he says aloud, thinking of the second time he'd been here, so desperately hopeful at the thought of being accepted by the people he'd finally realised it was his destiny to be with.

No one replies, of course.

He sleeps with nothing but a thin blanket between his back and the stone, and he sleeps much more fulfillingly than he's ever managed to do in the Fire Lord's expansive bedchambers. He stays at the Western Air Temple for a couple more days, just to make sure he isn't missing anything. He whistles to himself as he paces around its perimeter again, interrogating every nook and cranny.

He wonders—though only every so often when his mind wanders in the wrong direction—how Mai is doing back in the Fire Nation. It feels like he's running away, yes, but it still feels infinitely better than being at home. It wasn't until he actually took the Fire Lord's crown out of his hair and started kicking through the dust once again that it occurred to him that _this_ is what he's been missing. Since becoming Fire Lord, he's felt more like himself than he did when he was trying to please Father, but still notably less like himself than he did while he was travelling with Uncle, or with Aang and his friends. Zuko hates the thought of leaving his nation when it needs him—and leaving it to Azula no less, no matter how capable of watching her Mai is—but it doesn't stop him wishing that this period of freedom would go on forever. Doesn't stop him dreaming about simply never going back.

Zuko moves to the Northern Air Temple next and finds it similarly empty, passes a couple more peaceful days, and then continues on to its Eastern sibling.

It's lucky that he brought his war balloon (really this vessel is just a balloon, not at all purposed for war, made with plain white fabric instead of red, and not showing the Fire Nation's insignia anywhere on it) because the Eastern Air Temple is incredibly high up. It's built atop a cluster of three mountain peaks with bridges strung between them. He lands the balloon on the middle of the three. He feels a little lightheaded as he walks around these ruins, the altitude making him tired more quickly. He wonders whether this is a problem for airbenders, or whether their control over their element extends to breathing better in the thin air. Another thing to ask Aang about.

He's only been exploring for an hour or so when he hears a strange noise. It sounds like a—yes, that's definitely a voice. Singing, if its tuneless wail (as bad as Uncle's) could be considered a song. It isn't Aang's voice, that's for sure—both tone and accent are too different. But if there's someone here then that's definitely Zuko's greatest clue yet. He goes towards the sound. It takes a while to really figure out which direction it's coming from, as it echoes through passages and halls, and blows around on the considerable high-altitude wind.

He finds the noise's source sitting in lotus position on the floor in the top tier of one of the temple's towers, singing words that might be _chakras, chakras_. The man is dark brown-skinned with a hooked nose, a beard that looks like a big cloud attached to his face, and fluffy white eyebrows to match.

"Hey!" Zuko calls out. His firebending flares, instinctively, under his skin, but he makes sure to keep it in check.

The strange, bearded man stops his singing and turns around.

"How can I help you, Fire Lord Zuko?" he says, in his lilting accent.

"How do you know who I am?" Zuko asks, the fire in him surging defensively.

The man laughs. "You are quite recognisable," he says. "And there aren't many people with any reason to come to this temple. After all the Avatar has told me about you, it isn't hard to figure out who you are."

"The Avatar?" Zuko feels his eyes widening. He moves closer to the old man. "The Avatar is here?"

The man doesn't answer the question directly. "Come, young man, sit down," he pats the floor beside him. Zuko obeys. "My name is Guru Pathik. Are you hungry? I have enough soup to share."

"Where can I find Aang?"

"Patience," the Guru says. Zuko is quickly running outof just that. If Aang is finally within reach, then he needs to see him as soon as possible. "I will tell you where he is—but first, you must prepare yourself for what you will find."

 

ϟ

 

Azula wraps herself in a plain red robe, making sure her face is obscured by its hood, and slips out of the palace as night falls. It's regrettable that the meeting has to take place when the sun is distant and her firebending is less strong, but the woman she's meeting with isn't a bender at all, so Azula is still at an advantage in that regard. She has had a selection of knives sharpened for the occasion too, however; they are concealed in various places around her person.

She makes her way through the tunnels leading from the Caldera down to the docks, where soldiers, sailors and various tradespeople are cramming themselves into taverns as their shifts end for the day. It is raucous and unclean, but Azula walks across the mud and garbage safe in the knowledge that she will dispose of her shoes and her robe afterwards, and have her entire body scrubbed by her servants.

She ducks into the particular establishment that her contact has suggested as a meeting place, pushing through the sweaty bodies and wrinkling her nose at the vile scent. She finds her target sitting on a rickety bar stool in the corner of the room, chatting with a burly man who bears the tattoos of a seaman on the rippling muscles of his arms. Her target has inked skin as well, although her arms are much more slender. A red swirl stands out against her pale bare shoulder, framed on either side by black fabric. June's dress sense is something Azula thinks Mai would appreciate. Azula herself finds the look too unrefined; the skull that sits in June's hair where Azula would wear her crown is intimidating but not at all sophisticated. The overload of black powder surrounding her eyes is much the same.

Luckily it isn't June's fashion services that Azula has come here to solicit.

June spies her as she approaches and says something to the burly man. He stands and leaves. Another man tries immediately to take his seat, but June waves him away too. When Azula finally reaches June's little table and sits down she feels conspicuous, as the other patrons must be wondering what mysterious figure June has been waiting for, turning others away in favour of. Still, they are all so easily ensconced in their drinks and their drunken arguments that they'll lose interest in this small mystery soon enough.

"Hey there, stranger," June tosses back a small cup of liquor and then fixes Azula with a smirk.

Azula doesn't reply.

"Hmm," says June, smirk not shifting. "Quiet type, huh? I can work with that—so long as you'll speak up and tell me the things I really need to know."

Azula takes a scrap of paper from the pocket of her robe and slides it across the tabletop, carefully, so as not to acquire any splinters from the poorly sealed wood.

June reads it and the smugness in her expression slips for a flicker of a moment.

"You wanna know about assassins, huh?" she purrs. "Well, I know everybody who's anybody in that business, 'specially around here. There's a whole lot of soldiers who decided to try their hands at hunting bounty, after the war finished and they either lost their jobs or quit because they were afraid that they would soon enough. They're all useless, though. So many amateurs." June sighs disdainfully, picking at her dark fingernails.

Azula grows impatient. "I don't want to know about _amateurs_ ," she snaps. "Tell me about the people who are worthy of my time and my funds."

June grins. "There, I got two whole sentences out of you," she says. "I'm gonna get another drink. You want something?"

Azula shakes her head. "No. I don't drink alcohol." Alcohol interferes with the clarity of a person's mental faculties, the speed of their responses, their ability to trust their own tongue; it has always been incomprehensible to her that anyone would voluntarily poison themself with such a weakening substance.

June arches one of her thin eyebrows. "That sounds like a rough sort of life, but whatever. I'll be right back."

She returns with two drinks, but she doesn't offer either of them to Azula. The first she downs in one go, before their discussion can resume. Azula wonders whether someone who drinks like this can truly be an authority on tracking and fighting.

"Look, if you're offering _that_ much gold then I'm willing to bet the guy you want dead is someone important. There aren't many people around anymore who I trust enough to recommend for an important gig—the best guy I know of got himself blown up a while back—hunting the Avatar, or some _dumb_ fucking business like that. Since he's gone, I'd say I'm your best bet, lady."

Azula almost smiles to herself. She'd never actually confirmed that Zuko hired an assassin to take care of the Avatar after she'd given him the credit for his death (and the shame of that failure). She'll have a laugh about this fact later. Kuvira will doubtless be entertained by it as well.

"Very well," she tells June. "If you can prove to me that your alcoholic habits aren't impairing your abilities then I will hire you for the task."

June snorts. "Are you kidding me?"

Azula holds her silence pointedly.

June frowns. "Fine. What sort of proof do you want?"

"Come outside with me right now," Azula demands, and climbs off her unsteady chair.

June hurriedly drinks her second drink. Azula leaves through the tavern's back door, and as soon as they're out in the dirty alleyway she whirls around, knives in both hands. June is ready for her, sidestepping and ducking, the cocky grin on her face making the agile movements look especially easy. Azula attacks again, this time throwing one of the smaller blades towards June's leg. It narrowly misses her, skidding along the ground and being brought to a stop by the alley wall. June takes out a knife of her own and runs at Azula, throwing it towards Azula's left side, then catching her arm as she sidesteps, wrestling her to the filthy ground. Azula will definitely be replacing _all_ her clothes after this. She'd kill June here and now, expose her to the full brunt of her powers, if it wouldn't be sabotaging her own plan.

She drives the knife she's still holding up towards June's shoulder, but her arm is pinned down by the woman's entire weight as she straddles her. The indignity of it all is disgusting.

"Still doubting my talents?" June sneers, breathing the words across Azula's face. Her breath smells like alcohol, but Azula must admit that the bounty hunter's reflexes are still quick.

If she's going to hire this woman then she doesn't want her damaged, obviously—but by the same token, if she's going to kill Zuko, she needs to be able to handle more than just a knife fight. Azula goes limp for a second, as though in surrender, and then redoubles her strength in order to roll June off her and stagger to her feet again.

"That's better," June says heartily. "This is getting almost fun."

"I'll show you _fun_ ," says Azula as flames shoot out of her hands, blue light billowing through the air towards the hunter.

June dives out of the way, hair falling across her face as she catches herself against the wall. She shakes it clear of her eyes and then crouches as Azula sends another blast at the space near her head. She shoots back up holding the blade Azula had thrown at her earlier. She isn't smiling anymore, though. She looks somewhat shaken, now that it's clear who she's dealing with.

She's more or less passed Azula's test already, but she kicks flames at the ground near June's feet just to watch her dance for a little longer. June's breath is coming harder as she dodges and jumps, but in between the shots Azula takes at her she still manages to throw the knife back at its owner, aim good enough to catch the billowing side of Azula's hood. Azula retaliates with one final burst of flame, which leaves June's hair slightly singed at the ends on one side.

"Shit," the hunter swears. "We done yet?"

"Yes," Azula answers curtly. "Now, shall I inform you of the terms of our deal?"

"Let's hear it."


	14. Chapter 14

Morning meditation is unusually tense thanks to the questions (and the threats) that hang between them. Kuvira only has a few more hours before she has to formally accept Azula's proposal—and while she's already decided that that is going to be her course of action, making it real is still a strangely intimidating prospect. A strangely _exciting_ prospect.

Her breath is harder to keep at a slow, steady pace than it is ordinarily; her pulse is quicker and more erratic. It's stress, sure. Fear. But also... she finds herself anticipating the wicked smile which is sure to grace Azula's face when Kuvira says yes. And the celebration...

"You're distracted," Azula's voice splits the meditative quiet.

"Says who?" Kuvira deflects uselessly. "You're clearly distracted too."

"I'm anxiously awaiting a response to a marriage proposal. Any distraction on my part is perfectly permissible."

Kuvira laughs. "And I'm figuring out how to respond to a marriage proposal. That has to be at least as much of a reason for distraction."

"You're right," Azula says easily. "Perhaps some other activity will help us rein in our wandering minds. Something a little more physical."

Kuvira thinks automatically of a certain activity, and the smug expression Azula is levelling at her says she knows exactly what her words have suggested.

Kuvira recovers herself and taunts, "Does this mean you're finally ready to meet me in a sparring match?"

"Well," says Azula, "I _was_ hoping for a wedding, but I suppose your funeral would be entertaining too."

Kuvira grins and gets to her feet. "Meet me back out here as soon as you're suitably dressed. Wear as much armour as you need."

 

 

Azula returns in the shoulder and chest plating of a Fire Nation soldier. The width that the armour lends her top half flatters her figure immensely; her waist is tiny and tightly belted, before her looser pants add volume to her hips and thighs. She is a perfect hourglass.

Kuvira doesn't bother to disguise her admiration, and Azula preens under the attention.

"I do like that coat on you," the Fire Lord remarks. "It's a very sharp outfit."

Kuvira bends one of the metal strips off the shoulder of her Earth Empire uniform, holding it aloft, honing the edge into a blade. Sharp.

"I've punctured the hulls of empire class Fire Nation warships with this outfit," she says casually.

Azula's eyes narrow. "Very funny. But let's see how you fare when your precious metal reaches melting point."

The fight is by far the best Kuvira's had in a long time. Before long her heart is pounding and she can feel her raging pulse all over her body—she is acutely aware of it in her chest, at her temples, in the centre of her throat, even beating behind her eyes.

"I'm glad you suggested this," she tells Azula as she rolls easily away from an explosion of blue flames.

"I'll show you _glad_ ," Azula cackles—but her expression isn't one of madness or hatred that would give Kuvira cause to worry. She's having fun too. Azula having real, aggressive fun is terrifying in its own right. It's exciting to witness.

Kuvira flings blunt metal at her with the intention of trapping her wrists and ankles, but Azula clenches her hands into fists and flies into the air as if she's her own jetpack. It's impressive, but she's no airbender; she has to come down eventually.

Kuvira feels around her for more metal. The closest significant amount is in the roof of the pagoda. It's a reasonably simple little shelter, nothing she can't bend back into shape, even improve upon. She rips the metal roofing up and throws it onto the ground, spreads it thinly so that it covers the majority of their sparring ground.

Azula sees her actions as she's descending and redirects herself with a spurt of fire from her feet. She lands in the garden bed, in the middle of the red flowers.

"You have some nerve, destroying my palace!" she says, picking herself up. She doesn't step out of the garden, though. Instead, she raises her arms and begins waving them in a circular motion. At first nothing appears to be happening, but when blue sparks crackle at her fingertips Kuvira realises very abruptly that she herself is standing on the edge of a huge sheet of _very conductive_ metal.

She leaps off it and crumples it up in a hurry, throwing smaller darts of it towards Azula as she releases her bolt of electricity. As lightning strikes flying metal, Kuvira's connection with the pieces she's bending grows weaker. The metal vibrates, feels unwieldy and uncomfortable like pins and needles in a numb limb. She can still direct them, but keeping her grip tight enough to aim properly is several times more exhausting than it ought to be. The darts move slowly enough that Azula cartwheels out of their way with relative ease.

But Kuvira notices that she's struggling for breath, sweating noticeably more, after bending the lightning. She sends more pieces of metal in the Fire Lord's direction, and while Azula evades them, her movements are marginally more sluggish. Kuvira gets her on the run and then she makes her move, going for the ankles. As the strips hit home, she drags them upwards, carrying Azula with them. She ends up upside down in the air—an indignity she shouts loudly about.

Kuvira laughs and walks towards her, but Azula's arms start their circular motions again, amassing more electricity to bend. Kuvira captures her wrists with metal as well to stop her.

Azula screeches in pain; an unholy, unrestrained sound that Kuvira knows she'd never let out of her mouth if she could help it. Kuvira almost drops her out of shock. The metal bonds she's holding Azula with feel fuzzy with electricity, and she realises that they must have caused a misdirection of the lightning Azula had begun to collect. She doesn't know exactly how bending lightning works, but she's heard something about separating poles, splitting the energy within the bender's own body apart. What happens when control is lost halfway through that process?

She lowers the Fire Lord to the ground as quickly and carefully as she can, and snatches the metal away. As she connects with the earth Azula's body gives another sickly twitch, and another cry is torn from her throat, followed by a horrible whimper.

"Are you alright?" Kuvira asks stupidly, rushing to Azula's side and offering a hand to help her up, for lack of a better gesture.

Azula shudders and wheezes, not reaching for the hand extended to her. She doesn't look ready to be on her feet again yet. "Fine," she says through gritted teeth, still curled in on herself.

"I apologise, I didn't anticipate—"

"I was taught to bend lightning by Ozai himself," Azula hisses. "Don't even imagine that I'm not capable of taking a hit."

Kuvira thinks of her own father, the way he and her mother had sold their daughter on like just one more piece of pawned furniture or jewellery, and wonders whether the absence of any parent might be a better thing than the presence of an especially cruel one.

"It's not about whether or not you're capable of handling pain. It's about whether or not you should _have_ to in a friendly match like this."

"Friendly, you say?" Azula picks up on the word and uses it to redirect the conversation. "Are we friendly? I have to say, I'll be a little bit hurt if it turns out you do to all your friends the things you've done to m—"

"No," Kuvira interrupts. "I guess friendly isn't the word for us."

" _Us_ ," Azula muses. "I know how you can make this up to me," she says, the suggestion of all kinds of elaborate schemes in her tone.

"How?" Kuvira plays along.

"Tell me you'll marry me. Immediately."

Kuvira is just about prepared to do that, but she still seeks one last piece of reassurance first: "Is Zuko dead?" she asks. "For _certain_?"

"It's been seen to," Azula is either very confident, or very good at masking her uncertainty, even injured and struggling her way into a sitting position. Either way, if Kuvira can't tell the difference up close, then the people will surely believe her from a distance.

Kuvira thinks of Zuko for a memorialising moment. Mostly, she thinks of those ways in which he reminded her of her first fiancé. Azula is coldly pragmatic to have her own brother murdered. Can such a ruler ever be trusted?—Kuvira has no intention of putting much trust in her anyway. But she thinks of King Kuei, the snivelling mess in a cell so deep underground he'll have forgotten what light is by now, let alone the sun, the sky. She thinks of Long Feng, who's forgotten almost all of what he knew prior to meeting Kuvira. Thinks of Baatar, whose death she can't regret, even as she misses him. Cold pragmatism is not Azula's domain alone.

She looks at the Fire Lord's face and knows that it is the face of her true rival—the same face it's been all along, since Azula's drill leant urgency and motivation to Kuvira's takeover of Ba Sing Se. Kuvira will be damned if she doesn't stay even with this competition.

She speaks the words, and lets the truth of them sink in at last. "Alright, Azula. I'll marry you."

"Very good," Azula says. "You should also ensure that you fix that pagoda later."

"Of course. It can be an engagement present."

"Absolutely not. The entire point of a gift is that it's something that isn't already mine."

"Am I myself not a good enough engagement present, then?" Since Azula isn't getting up yet, Kuvira sits down beside her. She reaches for her hand, and Azula doesn't snatch it away. She just smirks, and the leans in close enough to kiss Kuvira lightly in between still-laboured breaths.

"No," Azula says, gaze flicking down to their clasped hands. "It's clear that you were already mine as well."

 

ϟ

 

"There's something going on with Kuvira and Azula," Ty Lee says.

"Yeah," Katara agrees, her anger colouring her words. "They're both awful, conniving people."

Ty Lee sighs and lets go of the complicated braid she'd been twisting into Katara's hair, having lost her focus on the intricate task. The tension on Katara's scalp eases, and she feels Ty Lee's fingers stroking gently through it to undo the failed styling. The touch is very soothing.

"No," Ty Lee sounds worried, and a little upset. "I mean there's something _going on_. I went for a morning walk before I came to see you, and I saw them sparring in the garden. They were looking at each other like..." she trails off, hands letting go of Katara's hair and falling limply into her lap.

"Like what, Ty?"

"Well, like they _wanted_ each other. Like they were together. It was kind of the same way Azula used to look at me, except... more."

The fact of Ty Lee's romantic involvement with Azula is entirely new knowledge for Katara.

"You were _with_ Azula?" she squawks. It certainly explains the way Ty Lee's been acting since she and Azula had their falling-out. Friendship lost is a hard enough thing, but love lost is an even messier wound. Katara can't imagine what it must have taken to stand up to Azula if Ty Lee was as close to her as that.

Katara feels hands start dividing her hair into bunches again.

"Kind of," Ty Lee says slowly. "I mean, I was in love with her. But she didn't feel that way about me. She just wanted someone to experiment on. My mistake was forgetting that, imagining that I could make her realise that what she really wanted was to love me back."

"That's terrible," Katara says, as soothingly and sympathetically as she can. It's amazing to her that a person as kind as Ty Lee could love one as cruel as Azula, but then love is nothing if not unpredictable. She'd spent several of her teenage years expecting that she and Aang would be together, because that was what made sense—but making sense hadn't made it true.

"It was fun while it lasted," Ty Lee shrugs. "But the fun memories make it even harder to remember why I shouldn't trust her again, you know? Why I can't let myself love her anymore. Sometimes I think I've got it all out, but then I see her looking at somebody else like that, and the jealousy just _happens_."

"It must be hard seeing her again. I think you're really strong for coming back here at all."

"This is my home—even if I have a new life on Kyoshi Island now, it's still where I grew up, where my family are, and where a lot of my friends are too. Even the circus I was in before Azula came and recruited me to her special elite team only travelled around the Fire Nation. I can't give up my entire country just because she lives in it."

"It makes it harder that she _rules_ it," Katara sighs. She's never going to forgive Zuko for leaving Azula in charge—no matter how much she appears to have changed, calmed, Katara doesn't believe it will last. Power has gone to her head in the past and it will again. She and Zuko both almost died to stop Azula from getting the Fire Lord's crown, and now he's just handed it over.

Ty Lee's fingers work quickly redoing the braid. She doesn't respond to Katara's observation. There isn't really anything to say.

"Let me do your hair next," Katara offers as Ty Lee gets closer to finishing her work.

"Oh, sure!" Ty Lee's melancholy has begun to fade, to Katara's relief. "Can you do those cute water tribe hair loopies, like you always wear? They're _so_ pretty."

Katara's cheeks heat up at the compliment. Ty Lee flatters her so relentlessly that she has trouble handling it sometimes; understanding what it means, and what exactly it makes her feel.

"Of course I can. I think they'll really suit you, too."

"Yay! Thank you Katara."

"You're welcome."

 

ϟ

 

"Excuse me officer," says Bolin, puffing himself up with as great an air of importance as he can muster. "But as current governor of this entire city I think you'd better let me through."

The policeman takes in the stripes on Bolin's jacket, does a double take of his face, and finally asks to see some identification. He scrutinises Bolin's passport, then says he'll be right back.

"Okay," he says upon return. "You can come through, sir."

"And she's with me," Bolin gestures to Opal. The policeman sighs resignedly and ushers them both through.

Everything outside the station is mayhem. There are angry, raggedly dressed people shouting and pushing against lines of armed police and soldiers who are trying to keep them penned in, while a small crew of metalbenders move in and slap cuffs on the ones who are hardest to keep down.

A few of the protestors see Bolin in his Earth Empire uniform and start spitting and shouting in his direction. He sees not only the anger in their faces, but the desperation, the hunger, the defensive snarls of creatures trapped and in pain. These are exactly the kind of people he joined the Earth Empire team to _help_ , but the ones he's looking at now clearly don't feel that they've been helped by Kuvira's regime. Something's gone horribly wrong.

Suddenly his jacket feels stifling, like it's constricting, a restraint of its own kind. He wants it _off_ , furiously unbuckles the belt and sheds the garment it like he's coming out of a cocoon. His cocoon of ignorance, he thinks, poetically.

"You've been trying to tell me about this the whole time, haven't you?" he asks Opal, who's watching him strip to his undershirt with some amusement.

"I'm just glad you're ready to listen now," she says. She's clearly about to continue talking, but Bolin stops listening when a familiar face flashes before his eyes.

"Mako!" he shouts and wrestles his way into the crowd. In the sea of swinging elbows and knees, of stomping feet and grasping hands, he chases the occasional glimpse of his brother. Mako looks pretty unkempt, his hair is flatter than he usually like it keep it, and his favourite grey jacket has been exchanged for an outfit of fraying brown. It's definitely him though. Bolin knows nothing if he doesn't recognise his own brother.

"Mako! _Mako_!"

He's almost reached him when the crowd lurches even more violently to one side, as the police start pelting people with rocks, shaking the earth beneath their feet. Bolin plants his foot as firmly as he can and tries to compensate with his own bending, but in the stampeding crowd he can't get anything like a solid stance. Not one of the people around him is an earthbender, he realises. Many of them have the golden eyes of firebenders or Fire Nation people, just like Mako, who has their mother's eyes. There are even a few people with much darker skin, flatter noses and blue or grey eyes—people of the Water Tribes, or at least descended from them.

Especially since the war ended, a lot of people have spread out across the four nations; Water Tribe people moving around to look for work, or prisoners being set free and staying in the Earth Empire rather than trekking all the way back to the north or south poles. Fire Nation citizens who had fled Ozai's regime coming out of hiding at last, and a multitude of unhappily conscripted soldiers, prisoners of war, banished dissenters, defectors and other refugees just looking to start new lives in new places.

Bolin would have thought that, in the wake of the war, people could band together to overcome the struggles that the Fire Nation's attacks have caused. Kuvira's always said that the Earth Empire is about repairing the wrongs done by the Fire Nation, so it only seems fair to Bolin that they should want to help all the people who have suffered at the hands of the Fire Nation, fled from it, or been displaced by the war.

The soldiers keep pelting the crowd with rubble, and Bolin realises with a jolt where they're herding them. The outer wall of Ba Sing Se looms, and slowly but surely all of the people who apparently aren't earthy enough for the Earth Empire are pushed out of its capital city, its proud safe haven. Bolin is pushed along with them, and before he knows it he and the others are sealed outside the walls. His first thought is for Opal who may or may not also have been swept out with the protestors. His second thought is for all the possessions he's left behind (literally everything he owns) for the total lack of supplies he has with him now. His third thought is, _Maybe this is where I can do the most good—help the most people. Start trying to fix what the Earth Empire is doing wrong._

His fourth thought is a wordless wash of pure, unadulterated joy as he sees his dishevelled big brother striding towards him.


	15. Chapter 15

Kuvira crumples the message in her fist. She gave the Dai Li _simple orders_ , and now her second in command has been stolen away by Su's daughter. She doesn't think it could possibly be that hard to locate a couple of escapees in the deserts that surround Ba Sing Se on every side—anyone travelling on foot would almost certainly be heading to the Serpent's Pass, and there aren't a lot of hiding places on that narrow strip of land. Still, Long Guon says they haven't been able to locate Bolin. Either he and Opal have escaped by some more efficient means of transport—airships, eel hounds maybe—or the Dai Li aren't actually looking at all.

Kuvira doesn't want to have to think about the implications of the second option, but it's past time to accept that it could be a reality. If Bolin is gone, and the Dai Li aren't being honest with her, then it's time she returned to the capital of her Empire and reminded everyone _why_ they bow to her.

She'll have to negotiate with the Fire Lord—make it a condition of their wedding that Kuvira can return to Ba Sing Se as soon as possible. Maybe she should ask that Azula come with her; she likes the idea of a chance to show off her own expansive domain to her new and powerful partner.

She searches for Azula in the garden, in the Fire Lord's quarters, and even in the portrait gallery before realising it's perfectly obvious where Azula will be.

The throne of the Fire Nation isn't really a chair. It's more of a platform, behind the walls of fire. Azula sits on it, legs crossed neatly. As Kuvira approaches, she uncrosses them rather pointedly. She smirks, Kuvira smirks back, and it is agreed.

Travel negotiations can wait until afterwards.

"Lock the doors," Azula orders.

Kuvira points her fingers quickly at the various entry points around the cavernous room, flicking each of their metal bolts into place.

She walks up the wide centre aisle, her shadow huge against the intricate carpet and marble underfoot. The fire, which has been orange until now, begins to change hue. The new blueness of it casts colder shadows, but the heat of the room is still so stifling that the illusion of any chill creates a strange contradiction. Kuvira's silk top is beginning to stick to her chest, so she reaches behind her neck and unlatches the necklace that holds the fabric up, then around to the middle of her back to pull the tie there undone too. Her shirt falls away into her hand. She drops it unceremoniously on the floor, disrupting the otherwise perfect order of this, the most sacred room in the Fire Nation.

The flames flare even bluer as Azula looks through them at Kuvira's bare chest. At least, she assumes that she does; the Fire Lord is mostly shrouded in shadow up there on her perch. A beautiful, dangerous silhouette.

Kuvira keeps pacing steadily towards the front of the room, stopping only once she's close enough to the wall of blue fire to feel its searing heat almost painfully against her face.

"Aren't you going to bow before me?" Azula asks quizzically.

"Let me closer and I might," Kuvira answers. With her political status, she's under no obligation to kneel in front of Azula—but this is not about politics.

The silhouette waves its hand and a section of the fire drops to nothing, a space just wide enough for Kuvira to fit safely through, stepping over the coals. She can see Azula much better once she's stepped past the flames; her features are still darkened, but the shadows dance over her rather than drowning out all definition. Her eyes are heavy-lidded and her hair falls soft around her face.

"Well?" she raises an eyebrow.

As promised, Kuvira drops to her knees once she's close enough to slot herself right in between Azula's. She unclothes the Fire Lord with careful but confident hands and then leans in to taste her with the same sure touch. Around her, the flames flare ever more intense shades of cyan, mounting until they seem to lick at the ceiling, until the roar of them nearly drowns out the little hitched moans that leave Azula's mouth.

"I do like the Great Uniter on her knees," Azula tells her afterwards, voice smooth with satisfaction.

Kuvira reaches out to touch Azula's cheek, runs her thumb softly over her delicate cheekbone.

"Anything to keep the Fire Lord at my mercy," she drawls, and leans in to kiss Azula's smirk away.

 

It's some time later that Kuvira actually gets around to bringing up the issue of her return to the Earth Empire.

"I expect you'll need a significant amount of time to solve whatever issues your empire is having," Azula prods. Kuvira refuses to take that bait.

"Steady leadership is the best leadership," she says. "I don't want to drop in on my people for mere days at a time, never providing them with any stability. So yes, I would like to spend a while there."

"Fine then. But you absolutely mustn't leave until we've been married."

"When will _that_ be?" Kuvira's been involved in enough wedding planning sessions to know such an event can't be orchestrated overnight. "How much planning—"

Azula groans, like she too is dreading the pointless hullabaloo of a royal wedding.

"Let's make it minimal," she says. Not knowing what _minimal_ means to someone who grew up as Princess of the most decadent empire in the world, Kuvira just waits for Azula to describe her idea further. "Why not just hold the ceremony on the balcony, let a crowd gather beneath it as has always been done for war announcements and important royal news? You wear your military attire, I'll wear mine, and if anyone dares throw confetti I'll set it on fire as it floats down onto the crowd."

Azula would model her wedding on a war speech? Kuvira finds it both surprising and not so surprising.

And Kuvira can handle war speeches _very_ comfortably.

"That actually sounds perfect."

"I'm glad you approve—the colour scheme was going to clash horribly anyway. Now, there's only one more thing to consider: do we announce my brother's death before, after or during the wedding?"

"Probably not _during_ ," Kuvira advises. "That might... confuse the mood somewhat."

"What are you talking about? It would be a day of joyous celebration all round."

 

ϟ

 

Mai meets with Azula in the throne room mid-morning. It's a private meeting, no Generals, Admirals or Ministers present. Mai holds most of their power in her hands anyway, and those she doesn't control she can at least predict; she can more or less speak for them all.

Azula looks somewhat ruffled in her place up on the throne, but Mai doesn't say anything about the hairs flying loose of her topknot or the puffiness of her lips. She just bows, greets the Fire Lord, and approaches.

"You should have brought more tea with you," Azula remarks.

Mai isn't sure whether she's kidding or not. "More of Zuko's tea? Are you serious?"

"Quite. I enjoy it as a reminder of why exactly I'm doing what I'm doing. In fact, before we begin you should go and prepare some."

Mai is surprised, but hardly disappointed. Azula is making her job too easy for her. She gives a reverent nod (Azula knows constant prostration from Mai is never going to happen; in fact, it would probably make her suspect false loyalty) and then walks back out of the throne room without another word. Zuko's shabby Earth Kingdom teapot and the bag of leaves he'd left her with are in her room, so she retreats there and makes them up. She reaches into her desk drawer and pulls out the small vial that's filled with her secret ingredient—perhaps the reason the tea is as foul as it is, although not the whole reason (Zuko's recipe really does clash with Fire Nation tastes). Trust Azula to become addicted to her own accumulating downfall.

Mai strides carefully back to the throne room with the teapot and a single cup.

"You aren't going to have any?" Azula asks, as Mai pours the drink for her.

"No way," she answers. "Now that Zuko's gone, I'll never have to drink this junk again."

Azula finds the excuse satisfactory.

"So, about High Admiral Moze and his secret lover," she begins. "His wife Yolisa is the one who brings their family nearly all of their social standing, not to mention their wealth, so if Yolisa finds out he's cheating on her..." Azula sips her ever-so-slightly poisoned tea and listens intently as Mai details the blackmail material that will buy the new Fire Lord another official's compliance.

Of course, it is Mai who has approached Moze—and in the end, it is Mai's will to which he will bend.

 

ϟ

 

"What do you mean, _Prepare myself for what I'll find?_ " Zuko asks Guru Pathik frantically. "Is Aang okay? Does he need a healer? If he's hurt why haven't you gone to find help for him yet—"

"Stop, stop," the Guru waves a hand, then pushes himself up from his seated position. "I am going to get us some soup, and then we will talk."

"Fine," Zuko agrees. The food supplies he brought with him have been running low, so a free meal is something he can appreciate. He's also grateful for any news about Aang, no matter what form it comes in, how slowly or cryptically. He's found his source—now he just has to be patient with it for a few more minutes. It proves to be harder than it should, now that he's so close to an answer. He takes deep breaths, the way Uncle would coach him to. He feels his fire rise and fall, a motion that becomes soothing almost like the washing in and out of waves on a beach.

The Guru returns with two bowls of soup, once of which Zuko accepts. It smells... strange. Well, no, _bad_ is the very first descriptor that comes to Zuko's mind. The soup smells utterly terrible.

 _It tastes_ —

Zuko spits the hesitant mouthful he's taken back out so quickly and explosively that he only just retains the wherewithal to aim it away from Pathik and his own lap.

"What on earth _is_ this? It tastes like someone mixed onions with bananas!"

Guru Pathik smiles benevolently. "I did," he replies. " _I_ mixed onions with bananas. It is very good food for contemplating balance."

"Okay," says Zuko, with forced composure. "Thanks for the soup," he sets it down on the ground beside him and tries not to taste the remnants on his tongue. Maybe if he adds several meals' worth of spices to it...

"You are welcome, Fire Lord," the Guru slurps down his own food with noisy enthusiasm as Zuko watches in mild horror. "Now, in answer to your question: Avatar Aang is very nearby. But on some days he is also very, very far away."

"What does that mean?"

"He is far not in physical distance, but in his own mind."

"His mind is sick?" Zuko frowns. The raw grunts and screams of Azula's madness sneak into his consciousness before he can banish them. Aang and Azula aren't alike in any way; the comparison shouldn't stand for even a second.  

"The young Avatar has travelled far and wide—through time, as well as across the earth. He has been swallowed by death and then spat back out more than once. All of this has greatly upset his ability to attain any inner peace. I would like to help him reopen his chakras and recentre himself, but I am afraid I cannot do that until focus is brought to his mind. I believe you can do this for him."

The Avatar brings balance to the world, but who brings balance to the Avatar?

"Me?" Zuko is bewildered. "What can _I_ do to help that a Guru can't?"

Pathik smiles, facial hair parting to reveal yellowed teeth. "Love, my boy," he says. "I have great respect for the Avatar, and I am sure he has come to have respect for me also. But I do not feel _love_ for him, and—more importantly— _he_ does not feel love for me."

Love? What kind of love is the old man talking about? If Aang needs _love_ then Zuko should go back home and collect Katara, bring her here. She could heal anything physical as well, and offer kind, supportive words; Katara always knows just what to say. Zuko can barely even string together words that mean what he wants them to mean.

He's halfway to telling the Guru as much, the protest sticking strangely on his tongue, reluctant to let itself be uttered, when Pathik begins to walk.

"Come, Zuko," he says, beckoning.

Surely it can't hurt to at least give helping his best shot. He's found the Avatar—something no-one else on earth has managed; maybe he's harbouring some special, unconscious ability to find Aang within his own unstable mind as well? _No_ , Zuko curses himself, _that makes no sense._

Still his feet carry him on and his mind never commits to making them stop.

Aang's hiding place, apparently, is a room filled with Avatar statues. Zuko was never able to get inside this room when he'd searched the Air Temples after his banishment. It's unnerving and amazing at the same time, the way they all stand staring at him with stone eyes, and the way they spiral up in rows all the way to the high ceiling—each one of them Aang and each one of them not.

The Avatar—the current one—is hunched over in front of the statue that must be Roku. His hair makes him almost unrecognisable; not only does he _have_ hair, but it hangs in lank, unwashed strings down the sides of his face. Zuko can even make out the shadow of scruffy facial hair over his jaw.

Aang looks up as Zuko and the Guru enter. The Guru stops near the door, however.

"I'll let you two talk," he says. "Good luck, my boy."

"Kuzon?" Aang asks, voice small, uncertainty with a dash of hopefulness. _Kuzon_. It's a Fire Nation name, though not one to which Zuko can attach a specific owner.

"No, it's uh, it's Zuko here," he corrects.

"Zuko," Aang repeats dully. Then his eyes go wide. " _Prince_ _Zuko?!—get away from me, leave my friends alone—_ " Air swirls around the Avatar's hunched body and Zuko scrambles back, arms raised in surrender.

"I don't want to hurt you, Aang!" he shouts over the whooshing of airbending. "I promise, I'm here to _help_ you!"

Aang's face falls heavily into a frown. "Why would you help us—" he says, and then stops in his tracks. His eyes seem to clear, he releases the air he'd been bending, and his whole body sort of softens. "Zuko?" he says. "How'd you find me here?"

Zuko falls to his knees beside his friend, relieved. "I'm kind of an expert on finding you, remember?" he jokes weakly.

Aang contemplates the words for a second. He doesn't smile, and it breaks Zuko's heart. "Yeah," he says. "I remember that now."

 

Aang seems like himself for a good hour or so, and Zuko almost begins to believe that he's succeeded in whatever task Guru Pathik had said lay before him. It hadn't even been that hard. Zuko gives him water that he can use to rinse the dirt out of his hair and off his skin. They snack on lychee nuts, which Aang has either collected himself or been brought by the Guru. They're certainly better tasting than the onion and banana soup.  

He's almost ready to believe that things could be okay when Aang's eyes glaze over suddenly, then blink with light, like a dying flame, fighting to keep itself going.

"Sozin?" The voice leaving Aang's mouth does not belong to him. "No, you're not Sozin, my mistake. Can you please tell me where Prince Sozin is?"

One by one, the eyes of all the stone Avatars begin to flicker. Roku's are the most brightly lit.

"Avatar Roku?" he asks cautiously. He feels ridiculous, but...

"Avatar? That's a new one. If Sozin's busy in a meeting with his father or something can you tell him to find me after he's done? He promised we'd train together this afternoon."

If Zuko hadn't read the secret history of his great-grandfathers, he'd be at a loss right now—but knowing what he knows, it seems like the person talking right now is a young Roku. Young enough to be unaware of his own destiny as the Avatar.

Young Roku; just looking for his best friend (and, if the _very_ secret histories are to be believed, his boyfriend).

"Aang," he pleads. "You're Aang now, not Roku. You're an air nomad. Can you remember that?"

"An _air_ nomad? Buddy, is there a feast I don't know about going on somewhere in the palace, with, maybe, an overabundance of wine being served? Because you're sounding kind of crazy right now. Also, what happened to your face? Are you new around here? I'm sure I haven't seen that scar before."

Zuko sighs and decides to go for broke; Roku already thinks he's mad. "My name's Zuko," he says. "And I'm your great-grandson."

Roku's eyebrows do a disbelieving dance around his face. "Sure, buddy," he says. "But you know what? I've got nothing to do until Sozin gets here, so you can keep going with your wild story if you like."

And this is how Zuko ends up recounting about a century of Fire Nation and world history to a boy who doesn't yet know he's the Avatar in the body of a boy who doesn't currently know he's an air nomad, at the foot of a statue of the first boy's much older self. (He tries not to think about it and just keeps talking, emphasising the details he thinks might occur most strongly to Aang, in case they bring him back to the front of his mind.)

Roku grows more and more glassy-eyed by the minute. He's a sensitive guy, getting all concerned over a story he thinks is the tale of a crazy drunk.

"You said that—when I come back from my Avatar training, which is ridiculous, by the way—Sozin and I are... together?"

Oh. _Oh._ Maybe Zuko's story has pressed against some truths that make Roku more inclined to consider it.

"You're not together now?"

Roku sniffs slightly. Zuko wants to hand him something to wipe his nose and watery eyes on, but there's nothing clean around to offer.

"No, no," Roku says. "I'd never thought he might want that. I mean, he's the Prince! It seemed like a ridiculous fantasy."

Zuko is so, _so_ out of his depth here, but he just ploughs on in what he hopes is a reassuring tone. Inevitably, it turns out that there's really no way you can describe betrayal, death, and a boy's childhood sweetheart ruthlessly invading the world in a reassuring way. By the end of it, Zuko can't help but shuffle closer so that young Roku can sniffle into his chest. It's beyond strange, cradling Aang's head against him and talking to his teenage great-grandfather, who is perhaps the only person Zuko's ever met as awkward as himself.

The muffled crying goes on for a while, during which time Zuko stays put and one of his legs falls asleep.

"Zuko?" Aang's voice asks at last. "Why am I crying right now?"

The Avatar doesn't question their embrace, though; he just keeps his head against Zuko's chest, and his arm wrapped around his waist. Zuko decides he'd rather let his other leg fall asleep too than move a single muscle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this marks the end of Part Two! Part Three is significantly longer and crazier and I'm only just about to finish writing the last chapter of it, so good luck to those of you mad enough to stay here with me. I appreciate you all a lot!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Part Three - in which our dear Azula starts losing grip in earnest, and the author follows very closely behind.

**PART THREE**  
**Puppets**

 

 

Azula gets a hawk carrying a scrap of bloodied fabric from June the day before she marries Kuvira. The message confirms Zuko's death, and Azula smiles as she reads the brief page then sends it up in flames. She spends the rest of the day ordering her servants through proper hygiene and beauty routines, ensuring that she will be in perfect condition for the day to come. Azula shows incredible restraint and does not banish even one of them.

She drinks a lot of tea. She's been feeling _tired_ , run down, which is unacceptable, so she drinks it in an attempt to energise herself. She's been training every morning in the garden with Kuvira despite feeling several steps below her peak; discomfort is only an obstacle if it is heeded, avoided, _allowed_ to affect one's behaviour.

In particular, she drinks a lot of Zuko's horrible tea. After she demanded Mai bring her tea in their meeting several days ago, Mai now brings a pot to every meeting. Azula has even begun to crave it, strangely.

It seems an appropriate beverage to drink in celebration of June's letter, of Zuko's official demise, so she has Mai bring her some while her servants groom her. Mai arrives, grumbling about not being one of the kitchen staff, but she doesn't argue any further than that. Mai has certainly been seeking to compensate for her betrayal during the war—and she has been doing rather well at it.

Azula ignores her father's voice in her ear as it congratulates her on finally doing away with the runt he's been ordering her to get rid of for years. With a sneer in his tone Ozai tells her that thanks to this achievement she has finally started measuring up, deserving her place on the throne. She does not respond to him out loud—not while there are witnesses all around her—but as his words send involuntary shudders down her spine she steels herself against them, trying to stop their deep echoes from vibrating through her entire body.

 _I didn't do this for you, Father,_ she thinks coldly. On the far wall, the image of Ozai in his full Fire Lord garb flickers, present for barely a second before dissipating, like smoke or steam that seems fleetingly to form an image as it coils its way through the air. Azula shuts her eyes, but on the backs of their lids the vision of Ozai takes form more easily, not less.

_I didn't do this for you. I did this for me. I am going to rule better as myself than I would have done as your puppet._

Ozai's laugh is soft and unnervingly close, as though he's leaning over her shoulder. She doesn't like him at her back—knows how he has turned on every member of their family one by one. Azula was the most useful to him for the longest, that was all. The sturdiest stepping stone. In trading his last shreds of reason for the robes and headdress of the Phoenix King, he made it clear that even her reward for years of subservience would have been further service to him.

 _I deserve more than you_ , she tells him silently. _And now you can't stop me from getting it._

 

 

The wedding itself is brief, without any of the pointless distractions and extravagances royal weddings traditionally feature.

"In the wake of the hundred year war," Azula announces to the crowd of citizens who have gathered for what they only know will be a crucial speech from their leader, "I see what needs to be done more clearly than ever. Our entire future as a great nation rests in the investments we make now; the way we conduct ourselves as not just a nation of military strength, but of cultural prowess, social respectability, economic prosperity, and above all, fearless innovation."

The crowd cheers. So many people are tired of war, Azula has learned. She was never raised to see much worth in anything besides it, and she still fails to see why anyone would settle for peace when they could expand their power—but she is standing before her subjects today with the intention of convincing them she can be trusted to bring them what they want. To do this, she must convince them that she has changed.

"There has been much instability in our leadership in recent years, and in recent generations. I am afraid I bring yet more news of upheaval to you today. My brother Zuko, who took up the crown after Ozai's fall into disgrace, has abdicated his position permanently in order to pursue matters he believes are of the utmost significance to the world as a whole."

She hears the rumble roll through the crowd and imagines Kuvira's surprise where she waits inside, just out of the congregation's sight. It's a last minute decision to refrain from mentioning the real reason Zuko won't ever be returning, but she believes it is a good one. Yes, there will be people who are reluctant to follow her if they believe Zuko remains an option, but painting his abandonment as voluntary speaks even louder against his loyalty to them than his confirmed death (and its inevitably suspicious proximity to Azula's ascension) would do.

Azula raises her hands to quiet the crowd before continuing.

"My brother's experiences during his adolescent banishment shaped his loyalties; he feels disconnected from the Fire Nation. He could not wear the crown with the pride befitting a Fire Lord. But I stand before you today with good news as well: in his absence, Zuko appointed me as his replacement, and I have never felt anything but pride in my nation, and in you, its people. I vow to _end_ the instability my predecessors have caused the Fire Nation. I will not desert it as Zuko did, or as Ozai did before him. I _am_ my nation, and just as I have fought for it time and time again, I will do all things in pursuit of its dignity; your dignity; our dignity."

The crowd cheers. Mai has paid off the occupants of several small villages to attend the announcement and celebrate it loudly, along with the guards and military, so as to encourage the rest of the crowd—but as the cries go up Azula thinks this moment would have succeeded even without such preparations. It makes sense, after all, that the people would be glad to have a ruler who will remind them of their greatness, rather than reminding them of their national guilt the way Zuko did. Pride is the greatest trait of any Fire Nation citizen, and he was a fool not to appeal to it.

Now comes the announcement that is bound to rock the audience. Azula is prepared for that.

"As you are no doubt aware, our greatest threat as a warring nation was the recently-formed Earth Empire; a large, stubborn and resource-rich collection of states including the major cities of Omashu and Ba Sing Se. It is also this empire that poses the greatest threat to our prosperity now that our military campaigns have ended. The Earth Empire would see its enemies humbled before it—"

Anxious whispers amongst the crowd. Azula drinks in the suspense.

"—and its _friends_ built up. That is why my first act as your new Fire Lord has been to single-handedly secure an arrangement ensuring that our most powerful neighbour sees us as not an enemy to exact revenge upon, but a people worth respecting. You and your families have fought proudly for this nation's prosperity for generations. I have fought for the same, and I recognise that the price is sometimes high, even when it is a great honour to pay. That is why I would like to give you a gift today—something that I only ask you thank me for with your loyalty.

"You have gathered here today to witness the making of a historic alliance—a union between your Fire Lord and the Great Uniter, Empress of your only viable enemy, now your strongest ally."

It's all rhetoric, but Azula has always been the best of liars.

"You give a good speech," Kuvira murmurs as she steps out onto the balcony and stands beside Azula, looking out over the masses who have assembled to see them. "I like that."

"I do, don't I? And Ilike that you like it."

One of the Fire Sages steps forward and they work quickly through the ceremony. Kuvira's hair is done in its usual style, pulled back with twists around the sides, but it's clear she's spent more time perfecting it than usual. Her makeup, too, is without the smallest suggestion of a smudge or a flaw. She looks at Azula with open admiration, and Azula is already so deep in the charade of the occasion that it's easy to return the expression.

Kuvira is a far greater asset than Azula ever expected to acquire through her marriage—she knew she would never be able to marry an equal as none existed, but the Great Uniter is perhaps the closest thing. The Great Uniter, who is _hers_ now. The knowledge of it feels good. And there is nothing to be done on their wedding night but wallow in that goodness. It's just barely been made official, but Azula decides she rather likes marriage so far. The crowd below shows no signs of violent disagreement.

She thinks Father's final ideas were stupid—too much attention paid to theatrics and not enough to strategic execution—but standing on this balcony, so far from the cell she was in recently enough that many scars of imprisonment have only begun to fade from her skin, Azula tells the ghost of Ozai that although she would never call herself such a thing, if _anyone_ is the Phoenix King, risen from ashes, it is _her_.

 

ϟ

 

Azula is drunk on power again. Sure, this time she's acting like a happy drunk instead of a wrathful one, but it will always go the same way in the end. She is an addict. She was born one and raised one, and Mai supposes there's nothing that can be done about that.

Mai flicks through the long list of bribes she's in the process of paying—one to every single attendee at Azula's idiotic rally of a wedding. That Azula believes every citizen would cheer for her so easily is just another symptom of her problem. _Royalty_. Mai was raised in a wealthy, powerful family, but she was never told she was anything but human. Never told she deserved to be worshipped just for walking the earth.

Nothing about today's events has truly taken Mai by surprise—not the announcement of Zuko's more permanent step down from the throne, not even the unusual adoration with which the two dictators looked at one another as they said their lines. She hires several discreet trackers to confirm or deny that whatever assassin Azula has surely sent after Zuko actually found their mark. She tells herself it's most likely that Azula's just lying, grasping at Zuko's power so that by the time he returns—if he does return—there'll be no space left in the throne room for him at all.

The thought that he might really be dead does ache...

But _no_. Zuko was banished for years, and even his younger self—much less equipped for life out there—managed to survive that ordeal. He survived multiple battles with Azula. Surviving is something Zuko manages almost inexplicably well.

And Mai has her own worries to take care of. She has a nation to hold together and a cracking Fire Lord to pry apart.

 

ϟ

 

Zuko has regrets. Most recently, his regrets include letting—no, _asking_ that—Aang try to tunnel them under Ba Sing Se to get to Uncle's tea shop. He's had so many conversations with past Avatars over the past week that he has a whole new lease on history. He doesn't know about the others the way he knows about Roku, though, and it's been harder and harder to talk to them, and to make sure they stay with him. _Uncle would be better that this,_ Zuko had thought to himself, until finally he realised that going to Uncle might actually be the solution.

 _Hey, man, what is this thing?_ a young Avatar Kuruk had marvelled, running Aang's hands over the ropes of Zuko's balloon as they'd flown towards Ba Sing Se from the Air Temple. _We're totally flying!—without even having to bend! It'd go faster if we added bending, though—do you think we could make it fly upside down? Oh look dude we should stop and go surfing in the bay down there! Woah, Zuko my man, you need to chill out—_

At least Kuruk had been friendly, even if he was much too easy-going for Zuko to understand. Kyoshi is not friendly. Kyoshi is _downright terrifying_. And Zuko is currently sitting in a very confined, underground space with her.

"So, ah, how old are you?" he asks, because so far the Avatar consciousnesses appearing in Aang have all been notably young.

"Fourteen," Kyoshi answers tautly. Her voice sounds huge coming out of Aang's mouth, even if she's years younger than him. He knows that adult Kyoshi absolutely towered over pretty much everyone. Her teenage self must be well on the way to doing so.

"Okay," says Zuko. "So they haven't told you you're the Avatar yet?"

Kyoshi makes no audible response at first; just turns Aang's head slowly and glares at Zuko. "I haven't been announced," she says, like she's talking to a bug she'd like to squash, "but as I've been bending both earth and fire since I was four years old I've known who I am for some time. What I don't know is how _you_ know who I am. _I_ don't know who _you_ are."

"Well, it's a complicated story," Zuko begins. It's not the first time he's told said complicated story, but talking to Kyoshi about anything is kind of as intimidating as speaking to a huge crowd. A huge, angry crowd. The words are suddenly difficult to get out.

"Well it appears that we have time," Kyoshi gestures to the unfinished tunnel they're crammed into.

"You could always get us out of here—" Zuko suggests, but Kyoshi raises Aang's hand and Zuko's arms are pinned to the rocky wall by cuffs of earth.

"Not until you explain what's going on. Why are we here, and how do you know I'm the Avatar?"

 

 

"I'm inclined to believe you," Kyoshi says, after waiting in stony silence for Zuko to recount his story.

Her quick acceptance is unexpected. "Why?" Zuko asks her. "Not that I'm not _glad_ you believe me, because I am glad, obviously."

"I've been listening to your pulse," Kyoshi nods at Zuko's bound wrists, "and you don't seem like a creative enough man to spin a lie like that anyway."

"I'm creative!" Zuko argues. Kyoshi silences him with a look. Zuko has never, he thinks, wanted Aang back more than he does right now.

"Answer me one more question," Kyoshi says, releasing Zuko from his bonds. "What great things do I do in my time as Avatar?"

Again, Zuko wishes he'd paid more attention to the details of history.

"Well, there was this guy called Chan the Conquerer? Or maybe it was Chin. You broke an entire island off the mainland while you were fighting him, with your earthbending and everything."

Kyoshi nods, satisfied. "I look forward to that, then. I'll have to practice my lavabending if I'm to bend landmasses apart."

"You can bend _lava_?" Zuko asks, incredulous.

"It's molten rock."

There are lots of volcanoes in the Fire Nation, but people seem unspokenly to accept lava as an unbendable relative of fire, rather than a version of earth. He knows Roku couldn't lavabend either way; he might not have died the way he did if he'd been able to.

Kyoshi shrugs. "I haven't perfected the art yet, but I'm getting close. And if I'm going to break up continents then I can't do it without reaching down into the earth."

"That's... really awesome."

"Now, you say we're here because you think my future incarnation would benefit from seeing your uncl—"

There's a strange noise coming up the tunnel all of a sudden. Kyoshi presses a hand to the wall and draws it away with a dark frown on her face.

"There's a shirshu coming towards us—and a woman."

Shirshu are rare enough that Zuko only knows one person who rides one, and he's willing to bet that that is who's after them now. "June," he breathes. "Azula probably hired her to kill me."

"Azula?"

"My sister. She's standing in as Fire Lord while I'm away."

"I'll take care of her for you if you want." There's a distinct edge to Kyoshi's offer that promises murder.

"Of Azula, or of June?" he clarifies.

Kyoshi shrugs Aang's shoulders. "Either."

But no. Aang would never murder either of them—he hadn't even killed Ozai when it would have been perfectly justifiable to do so. Zuko will never be forgiven if he lets Kyoshi end a life using Aang's hands.  

"No killing anyone," he tells her firmly. "But, uh, I _would_ appreciate it a lot if you could make sure she doesn't kill me."

"You're a friend to my future self—even if that self is a pacifist," Kyoshi says, and Zuko takes it as agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact - in the next chapter June and Kyoshi have a bit of an exchange, and I did not realise until after I had written it that both of them are voiced by Jennifer Hale. So this highly improbable conversation also happens to be a massive coincidence in that regard.


	17. Chapter 17

The damn Fire Lord is lucky she's paying June a big bucketload of gold for this job, because it sucks. June is literally crawling through the narrower parts of this dirty tunnel, and she's going to charge Azula for the repairs her outfit will need afterwards. She can't even brush her hair out of her face without getting dirt in her eyes. It's not that she can't take it—she can survive a whole lot worse than this if she has to—it's that she just did not feel like going through this crap today.

The upside of the situation is that Zuko will be a sitting duck in here. One lick from Nyla and he'll be done for—so long as Nyla gets a shot at him before he gets a shot at her. Nyla is by far the most valuable thing in June's life. Shirshu are rare these days, after the idiotic Fire Nation military took all the breeders' stock and, lacking any knowledge on how to properly train them, ended up with a lot of dead animals and a lot of dead soldiers.

If a shirshu is going to work for you, it has to make that decision. It'll smell you, decide it likes you, and skip over the part where it kills you with a touch of its venomous tongue. A chance like that doesn't come along often; June knows how lucky she is. She also knows that, with the scent of one shirshu already on her for life, any other shirshu in the world is even less likely to pick her. If anything happens to Nyla, she doesn't get a second shot; June'll be sadder and less rich than she should be for the whole rest of her life.

So she continues carefully. She lights the little torch she keeps on her so she can see what's ahead, as well as relying on Nyla to sniff it out. She rounds a bend and the tunnel widens out into a cave. The end of it is blind, so June's got her back to the only way out right now—the only problem is Zuko's not alone.

"Stop right there, assassin," says Avatar Aang, whose eyes—unless June's going crazy down here in this creepy underground space—are softly glowing in the dark. His voice sounds low and commanding and... kind of feminine. Not at all the voice she'd expect to come out of that body. Its strong tone actually makes the words sound a lot less ridiculous than they should.

"So you actually found the Avatar, huh?" June asks Zuko, who's standing just behind his friend's shoulder. "I guess for someone without a pet as great as mine, you don't totally suck at tracking people down, do you?"

"It's just one of my skills," Zuko says, setting his legs and arms in a typical firebending stance. He doesn't punch out any bending attacks, though.

His friend does.

"Hey!" June shouts as the earth rises up and encases her. It's bruisingly tight, pressing in like it's actually going to crush her. "What's up with your friend, man?" she wheezes at Zuko. "I thought Aang wasn't the killing type—wouldn't even finish off your wolf-batshit crazy dad!" Just took his bending away, as though that's sufficient punishment for trying to set the whole freaking world on fire. A life without bending! The _horror_.

"Well, Aang's not quite himself right now," Zuko says, but he holds a hand up and the Avatar's grip loosens enough to let June breathe freely.

"All I want is my money, okay?" June says. She also wants not to fail Azula and be executed, but people don't always get what they want, and there's no way she's telling her mark that she's feeling any kind of fear. "If you can disappear well enough to convince your crazy sister you're dead, then that's good enough for me."

"What makes you think you're in a position to bargain?" the Avatar sneers.

"Gee, you are _not_ the cheery guy I heard you were," she says. "Clearly, you've got me right now. But something tells me you have problems you'd rather be dealing with than looking over your shoulder trying to figure out when my knife's gonna land in your back, or worrying that each cup of tea or bowl of fire flakes will be the one spiked with shirshu venom. Because it's your sister we're talking about here. I'm gonna keep trying until I've got something satisfactory to tell her, and if I don't make it back she'll hire ten more guys, twenty more, fifty—until she finally gets your head on a platter. We could save both our asses if she just _thinks_ the job's done."

Zuko looks her in the eye and June knows she's got him convinced. He takes a knife from his hip, and for a split second she doubts her judgment, but he only uses it to hack off a section of his overshirt. Then he runs the blade up the skin of his forearm and presses the filthy cloth to the wound.

June winces. "You're gonna wanna clean that or you really _will_ wind up dead," she says.

Prompted by Zuko, the Avatar commands the earth encasing June to recede. He keeps his hands up, flames dancing brightly over his palms, just in case—but no way is June that stupid. She catches the bloody scrap of fabric Zuko tosses at her and leaves the way she came as quickly as possible. There's no guarantee Azula will buy June's story—but people are, in June's experience, pretty good at believing what they want to believe. Especially the rich, snooty ones. She figures it's worth a try.

 

ϟ

 

Bolin, Mako, Baraz the firebender and Ahnah the waterbender sail over the desert that they'd never have been able to cross on foot. It's really lucky those two guys with the balloon landed near their camp outside the wall, or Bolin thinks people might have started... he doesn't like to use the word _dying_ , but they might have started... failing to live.

No, he reflects, that doesn't really sound any better.

Bolin had been able to team up with the waterbenders among them (the ones like Ahnah that would speak to him and not try to ensure _he_ 'failed to live', at least) to find water underground and dig a couple of moderately useful wells—but the fact remains they wouldn't have been able to live like that, in sandy stone huts with virtually no food, for very much longer.

Now that they have a means of travel, they can get assistance.

At first, the sight of the balloon had people scared, but the men riding in it didn't bother them. There'd been one guy with a scar on his face kind of like Fire Lord Zuko's, and a guy with a headband whose face Bolin never really saw because he never lifted his eyes from the ground.

"What are you all doing out here?" scar-man had asked, to which Bolin had replied honestly,

"Right now? Trying not to starve to death, mostly."

"Why not go into the city?"

Bolin had scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but they're kicking out anyone who's Fire Nation or Water Tribe—especially if they're benders. That's why we're all stuck out here."

Scar-man's eyes widened. " _All_ firebenders? Have you by any chance seen an old guy, white hair, white beard, likes tea and singing, smelly feet, name of Ir- uh, Mushi?"

Bolin had recognised that name. "You don't mean Mushi who runs the Jasmine Dragon, do you?" Opal liked that shop, and it'd been in the upper ring so they'd gone there pretty often. _Opal_. She wasn't in the crowd who were ejected from the city, so he really hopes she's doing okay back inside its walls. He knows she's tough, but he still worries, because that's what Bolin does when he cares about people.

"Honestly I'd never even have guessed he was Fire Nation! I think Mushi might be the exception, since he lives in the upper ring, and even the Dai Li really like his tea—and it's hard to make those guys like anything! These people are the refugees who never made it out of the lower ring camps."

"Phew," scar-man had said, then looked contrite. "I mean, I'm sorry about your situation. Have you sent people to get help?"

"Um... not so much, no. We've had no way of getting across the desert—and even then most towns and cities close to here are Earth Empire. They won't help a bunch of fire and water benders who were banished from the Empire's capital."

Scar-man's face set with determination. "You should take my balloon. If you take a firebender with you to keep it going once the fuel runs out, you could even make it to one of the water tribes or to Yu Dao. I'm sure there'll be some more sympathetic people there."

Mako had joined the conversation at this point, levelling a glare at scar-man.

"Why would you give us your balloon?" he asked, arms crossed over the chest of his threadbare jacket.

"Why would _you_ question it when someone offers us _help_?" Bolin hissed in his brother's ear. To scar-man, he turned and said, "Your help is much appreciated, kind sir. Perhaps a better question would be: if we take your balloon, what will _you_ do? Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but you don't look like an earthy kind of guy—and if _I_ think that, the guards at the gate are likely to think it too."

Scar-man's eyes flicked to his silent companion. "We'll find a way to get inside," he said—pretty mysteriously, in Bolin's opinion. "You don't need to worry about us."

"Well, in that case, we'll take it!" he told the mysterious guy, only as enthusiastically as anyone would accept someone basically saving their life. "I don't know how we can repay you, kind Scar Man!"

"You don't have to. Just get these people to safety. The balloon is over that way," he pointed further around the wall. "You should hurry or officials might make it disappear."

With that, scar-man had turned and walked towards the wall. His companion had pulled the earth away and the two strange travellers vanished into the ground. An earthbender, smuggling a Fire Nation guy into Ba Sing Se. Bolin hoped that they would succeed in whatever mission they were on, that somehow involved Mushi the kind tea-maker.

They're far behind him now, but he still keeps up that hope quite anxiously.

He watches as, far below the balloon, the golden sandy desert turns into mountainous coastline, turns into water. It's going to get a lot colder as they move towards their destination (and Bolin still has nothing on his top half but his under-singlet) but the fire that Mako and Baraz are keeping up to fuel the balloon offers some warmth.

He wonders what the north pole will be like. Ahnah says it's beautiful, but she hasn't been home in almost fifteen years.

 

ϟ

 

Azula is surprised to find that she has slept soundly enough to have missed her new wife getting up in the dark before dawn. She is only roused by the deliberate shaking of her shoulders by gloved hands, and the sounds of clinking metal. Kuvira is wearing her full Earth Empire uniform.

Azula could have been killed a thousand times over as she slept, if her slumber was this impenetrable. Her heart flips over at the realisation, but calms itself when Kuvira presses a gentle kiss to her hair.

"Are you _certain_ you have to leave?" she murmurs.

"I am," Kuvira replies, humouring her. Azula has asked her this question already. She isn't sure why she repeats it when it's obvious the answer hasn't changed. A symptom of her sleepiness, no doubt.

"You know, traditionally a couple will spend the period directly following their wedding in each other's company," she complains, rolling over, sweeping the hair roughly out of her face.

"You married a world leader. Having to pass on the luxury of a honeymoon is a consequence of that. It isn't like you're putting the tasks of the Fire Lord on hold for a week or two."

She's right, of course. Azula recalculates her goal. "Are you sure you can't stay another hour?" she asks. "It's early yet. And I could think of ways to pass the time."

Deliberately, she spreads herself out across the bed. Kuvira's eyes track each of the curves her posture emphasises, but she doesn't take her gloves back off.

"My airship is already here," she says. "Responsibility outweighs temptation, I'm afraid."

Azula smirks. "But I _am_ a temptation?" she asks sweetly.

Kuvira kisses her again, this time for longer and on the lips.

"I don't believe the woman I married could need anyone to tell her that," she answers, and before Azula knows it Kuvira is out the door.

Azula considers getting up, hurrying into some clothes and chasing her wife out to see her off, but it's early and her body feels heavy. It would be a display of desperation if she went, anyway. Azula's eyelids pull themselves shut and she slips back below the surface of sleep before she can reconsider.

 

 

She rises when the sun does and practices her meditation alone—at least until the voices set in. They're louder, more insistent now she's by herself out amongst the flower beds. Her breath comes faster, harder as she tries to drag the air into her lungs. Her ribs feel like they're closing in on her, traitors under her own skin. It's terrible when you can't trust the people closest to you. It's something altogether more desperate when you can't trust yourself.

 _Your entire life is built out of pieces I have given you,_ Father says. _I am too much a part of you to be escaped._

Each inhale is a sharp wheeze. The sound, the forceful dragging of the breaths takes her back to moments she prefers not to revisit. Drowning on solid ground, suspended and held hostage by Katara, completely helpless as a rusty chain was fastened around her wrists. The forces of fear and failure had been like iron weights planted inside her, pressing on her lungs, stealing the mobility of her limbs away from her, exploding and sending shrapnel through tissue to scratch at bone, blocking or hijacking all the energy paths. The should-be Fire Lord, rendered helpless outside and in.

 _There is no removing these flaws,_ Ozai whispers. _Your mind is corrupted, disobedient. Not so insolent as your brother, but a faulty child all the same—in the end you were an even greater disappointment._

"I won't accept the judgment of a disgrace rotting in a cell," Azula says aloud, the process of forming the words a way of wresting back control over her breathing. It seems to work, so she continues. "Of all the disappointments in our family, it was _you_ who attempted to conquer the world as a grown man and lost to a teenage boy. I brought the Avatar down once—all but killed him—and yet you, almighty _Phoenix King_ , were laid low by him even with the power of the comet at your disposal! If you'd brought me with you that day _as planned_ , everything could have been different—but you were selfish, you miscalculated, and it lost you the world. It lost both of us the world."

She continues breathing hard, and her lungs begin to fill as they should again. The volume of the voices has reduced.

 _You have so much to say to me,_ Ozai goes on, _and yet you say it all to the empty air, too afraid to face me. Your brother was a coward, only game to speak his mind on the Day of Black Sun. You are a thousand times worse—you say I am laid shamefully low and yet you still hide from me._

"I am not _afraid_ ," she answers. "I simply see no point in visiting your grave, Father."

_Afraid of the dead, then?_

"Hardly. I am unwilling to waste my time on them."

"Azula?"

At first she thinks another ghost has joined the fray, but then a twig snaps behind her. She's on her feet in an instant, standing to face the speaker, fire fighting against the blockages in her chi paths.

"I'm surprised, Ty Lee," she says, the need to sound as cutting as possible further forcing her breathing into submission. A task to focus her attention. "You seemed so decided upon never speaking to me again."

Ty Lee stands still in the grass. She's dressed in as little as ever—though she favours Kyoshi green for her costumes now, instead of pink. Her hair is done oddly. It takes Azula a moment to realise that the little twists hanging down on either side of her face are a version of Katara's water tribe hair. How bizarre.

Azula debates sending a fire through the grass to burn Ty Lee's soles.

"I didn't come out here to find you, but I was walking and I heard you, um, talking. I got worried."

Azula waves dismissively. "You should have continued on your way. Your concern is not needed, nor is it appreciated."

Azula can picture the crestfallen expression the Ty Lee of old would have displayed at her words—but this new Ty Lee just looks on without moving a muscle. Azula is nearly impressed.

"You shouldn't make the same mistakes twice, Azula," she says.

"I never make mistakes."

"Of course not. Just like you never lie."

"No, I lie often and I plan to continue. But look at yourself, Ty Lee; that trashy earth peasant outfit is as false as anything I've ever said. You're just not as good at fooling anyone."

"Maybe," Ty Lee shrugs. "You're right about that part—I'm not as good at fooling people as you are. You're so good at lying you don't even recognise the truth when it's written on your own face."

 _The circus brat is right; look in a mirror and it should be clear that you are no true Fire Lord_ , Ozai interjects.

"A lot of people were very surprised when you married Kuvira."

"But not you?"

Ty Lee shakes her head. "No, I saw it. The way you look at each other—"

"More well-told lies, on my part."

"I don't think so. I know you, Azula—I can tell when something really matters to you."

"A look you think you saw when I set my eyes upon _you_ , no doubt. You're imagining things, Ty Lee, just as you always have." Azula pauses. "You must miss her."

"What? Who?"

"Whoever keeps you warm back on Kyoshi Island. Or is it a he?—or a whole group of admirers?"

" _You_ miss _Kuvira_ ," Ty Lee suggests instead.

"That's ridiculous. I'm not the type to miss my bedmates when they're away."

"She's not just a bedmate, she's your wife."

Azula raises an eyebrow and teases, "Jealous?"

Ty Lee sighs. "I might have been, once upon a time. But not now. I'm just concerned about what'll happen if you fall in love without understanding it."

Azula wishes Kuvira was here to assist in fending off these idiotic suggestions. The Great Uniter may be convinced that Azula feels something for her, but she's never gone so far as to pretend that that something is _love_. Kuvira is too clever to believe a claim so outlandish. They have a business arrangement—one which happens to have some very pleasurable perks. But _love_ is a fiction found in children's stories and spirit tales, and simple-minded, trusting fools.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm leaving on Thursday for a three week holiday, and I'd planned to set up some automatic updates to take place during that time, but in the end I figured why not just throw them all up there. Two more chapters should be coming at you within the next 24 hrs. You can ration them (or not) as you see fit :)
> 
> Depending on the wifi situation while I'm away, I may be here to respond to your comments asap / on [tumblr](http://henrymercury.tumblr.com/) to chat and otherwise interact, or I may have to wait until I'm back for some things. Either way, I will 100% appreciate any words you kind people send me! Hope you have yourselves a great summer/winter/holiday season.

"Azula doesn't love anybody," Katara says the moment Ty Lee suggests it.

"That's her opinion as well."

They're sitting out in the garden again, near the fountain so that they can play with the turtle-ducks. Ty Lee feels like there's a storm brewing and nothing much she can do about it until it breaks and tasks her with trying to dry herself and others off. She wants to be able to act now, to prevent instead of treating the wound.

"Well, no," Katara corrects. "She certainly loves _herself_ a lot."

Ty Lee bites her lip. This, she knows, is not as true as it might seem—but she's also sworn to be done with defending Azula to anyone, and she knows Katara won't take it well if she tries to explain that the things Azula does, the way Azula is, doesn't stem from self-love so much as it does self-loathing. But the Pr— the Fire Lord _is_ really good at lying. It's not fair to blame Katara for not seeing through that aggressively-maintained facade.

"I guess her version of love is different from most people's," Ty Lee concedes, and begins to pick the tiny pink flowers that have been popping up in the grass. She weaves their stems together so that they form a little chain. She offers it to Katara.

"These are beautiful," the waterbender says, looking over them. Ty Lee likes the way the pale petals stand out against Katara's dark skin. She admires how that smooth skin glows so richly when light touches it, how it makes the blue of her eyes look extra bright.

"They look especially beautiful on you," she says, and relishes in Katara's warm smile—such a quick turnaround from the icy barbs she always brings out at the mention of Azula. There are different sides to Katara, and so far Ty Lee likes them all—but she likes her happiness the most. Katara's powerful anger reminds her of Azula on occasion. Her happiness is the perfect opposite.

"I was going to say that I should put them in your hair," says Katara. "They'd look nice woven into your braid."

Katara's hair is currently loose, hanging down over her shoulders. Ty Lee has become well-acquainted with that hair ever since she and Katara decided to become friends; Katara has patience and interest that Mai and Azula never had for girly chatter and makeovers. Ty Lee likes Katara's hair this free and fluffy. She's not inclined to tie it up right now.

"Hold on," she says, reaching to take the flower chain back out of Katara's hand. "Let me just—" She lays them on the top of Katara's head like a crown, "—there. You look like a princess."

No, Ty Lee thinks—with her chin held high like that Katara looks like a queen.

The waterbender laughs. "Thanks," she says, and begins gathering flowers of her own. "Let me put these in your hair, and we can both be princesses."

Ty Lee likes it when Katara lets go of her seriousness like this. She only ever does it when it's the two of them alone, passing the time. Dinners—when they don't skip formal meals to chat and relax somewhere out of Azula and Kuvira's presences—are uncomfortable, stiffening affairs. Right now, as Katara giggles and leans close to tuck little blossoms between the twists of Ty Lee's plait, she seems younger, like she's shed the bad things weighing on her for a minute.

That's how watching her makes Ty Lee feel.

She feels a blush rising at the featherlight contact of Katara's breath, light steam against her cheek. Those blue eyes hover slightly above her own, focused on the side of her head as careful hands decorate the hair there flower by flower. One of the blooms has begun to dry out, but rather than tossing it away as Ty Lee expects her to, Katara bends a small bubble of water from the fountain pond and wraps it around the flower, reviving it, repairing its crunchy, discoloured patches. Seeing Katara put so much care into such a small thing makes Ty Lee even gladder that they get to be friends now. That they have this time where it's just them, even if it's arisen from the fact they're both lonely and anxious in this place. It's the kind of silver lining she used to believe in wholeheartedly, and it makes her want to take up that faith again.

Katara's lips are around Ty Lee's eye height, so it's difficult not to look at them. They're big and lush-looking in contrast with the thinner lips of most Fire Nation folk. They're stained slightly pink from a lip colour Ty Lee gave her, and Ty Lee feels a sudden wash of pride at the fact that she's wearing it, that _her_ gift is on that lovely face.

She wants to add another layer of her lipstick—the shade she's wearing now. There's not enough distance left between her lips and Katara's to recognise and abort the impulsive movement before contact has been made. She keeps her mouth pressed against Katara's for a moment, just hanging there amidst the frictional buzz of personal spaces crushed suddenly together.

Katara pulls away in a slow movement, brings a hand to touch her lips curiously. Her fingertips come away with a trace of the red gloss Ty Lee is wearing. It matches the faint reddish glow in Katara's cheeks, and around the outline of her figure. It's been a while since Ty Lee last perceived an aura this brightly.

"I'm—" she begins, but finds she isn't sure what she actually plans to say. She waits for Katara to react before starting on an apology—because if Katara isn't sorry then neither is Ty Lee.

Katara's eyes are wide. She searches Ty Lee's face like she'll find an answer there, but Ty Lee doesn't think she looks very sure of the question.

"I don't know," Katara says at last. She looks kind of distressed. "I don't know."

"You don't have to know!" Ty Lee hurries to assure her. "I just—it was spur-of-the-moment, and... I really like you. But it doesn't have to be like this if you don't want it to be. I'm just so glad to have you as a friend, Katara."

Katara rubs her temple. "It's not that I _don't_ want that," she says. "I hadn't really thought about it, but that doesn't mean that maybe..."

Ty Lee has listened to Katara talk about how unsure she'd felt when Aang first kissed her, when he proposed to her, when he left. The last thing she wants is to add to that confusion. Spirits, why would she do something like this when it was bound to result in—

"Hey," says Katara, "don't you freak out either. I just need some time to think, okay?" Her smile is a little strained, but Ty Lee still finds comfort in it. It's meant especially for her, and she likes that a lot. It means Katara cares, and that means there's hope.

She smiles back, and the brightness of the expression settles into her face until it feels perfectly natural there.

"Okay," she agrees.

 

ϟ

 

Azula has her nails done, redone, her hair washed and brushed, the skin between her toes meticulously cleaned. The lightning marks on her body have faded now, so she allows her servants to assist her in bathing and dressing again.

Mai reports to her on an assortment of uninteresting things; matters of importance to the frivolous noble families that Azula is glad she doesn't have to manipulate herself. Mai has never been the kind to stick around and chat, though. It doesn't matter; Azula doesn't _need_ Mai's company, or anyone's. She just has more time to spare than she was expecting to have as Fire Lord. Her footsteps echo through every room she visits, the train of her robe brushing the floor with a hissing that sets her on edge. She knows well the sound of isolation. If anything, it's louder in these huge empty halls than the cage she was kept in directly after the war.

She throws flames and lightning around until her entire body is wrung out—sets fire to a few of the uglier tapestries on the walls and watches as the light crawls hungrily over them. She considers ordering a servant to face her in combat, but destroying a feeble, hesitant opponent doesn't sound like fun today. She has tasted too liberally the exhilaration of fighting a relative equal in recent weeks. Like anything, once she has had that exhilaration, settling for anything less feels unacceptable; thin, stale food after a diet of sumptuous delicacies, unshifting grey clouds after witnessing a sunset of violent red bleeding through the sky.

 _You miss her_ , the voices break into the silence, which seems heavy with their resting breaths even when they aren't taunting her with their words. The voice that speaks loudest is not Father's.

"Mother," she hisses, scowling as if she can hide the unease that rises like bile in her throat. She hasn't heard from Mother since the day of Sozin's comet. It is easy enough to predict and refute the things that Father says, but Azula doesn't _know_ Mother half as well, doesn't understand her brand of sentimental, muddled logic.

 _Yes, Azula. I'm here._ Mother speaks so softly, as though speaking to a small child—one she actually has an interest in soothing. Her lies are harder for Azula to dismiss than Father's or Ty Lee's. The memories they compete with are old enough to be brittle, vulnerable to doubt. When dealing with doubt, Azula favours aggression.

"Well, whatever nonsense you have to say, get it over with," she bites out.

 _I'm not sure she's ready to hear it,_ Ty Lee's voice interrupts.

 _Only hearing it can set her on the path to readiness,_ Ursa responds.

And now the voices in Azula's head are talking about her like she's not even here. Like she's not the only one who's _actually_ here.

"You should both take your infantile ideas and leave me alone."

 _Do you really want that?_ Ursa's voice is soft and full of (phoney) concern. _To be left alone?_

 _But you're already alone, Azula,_ Ty Lee says, _That's the problem, not the solution. The real solution... she has dark, thick hair; speaks firmly and deeply, and kisses more so. She fights like a one-woman army—_

"You're being ridiculous. You _are_ ridiculous."

 _No, she's not. You love your wife, Azula. You do,_ Mother lies, as though Azula has done something as rash and short-sighted as marrying for _affection_ instead of for power. Mother has never understood priorities; even what she did to Grandfather she did for the wrong reasons (for _Zuko_ ).

Azula roars in frustration, wanting to drown the voices out, but they only rise in volume. She wants to aim fire at them but they have no bodies; wants to cut them out but they are not like tumours. They issue from the same place as her own consciousness does. She squeezes her eyes tightly shut, trying to clamp down on her brain. Water leaks from the edges and begins to dry, turning tacky with salt. She rubs it away, rubs the skin hard.

Suddenly Mother and Ty Lee are gone. They don't leave with any kind of farewell, but she can feel their presences dissipate.

 _You're strong, Azula,_ says Kuvira. She speaks so smoothly—in the private voice that has whispered into Azula's pillow. _Stronger than them. Stronger than this. More than strong enough to silence those who doubt, slander or attack you._

Azula listens, hangs on the words as that smooth, strong voice defends her, even if this too is only imaginary. She enjoys the sound; it conjures memories of lips and fingertips and loose locks of hair trailing over her skin. Warmth. If she must have an intruder in her mind, she should at least be able to choose who it is.

"You may stay," she tells the voice of Kuvira. "Lock the doors. Don't let the others back in."

_You shouldn't hide from them. Hiding isn't what you do._

This, Azula already knew. "You're right," she says. "But really, _they're_ the ones hiding—too cowardly to face me in person. I'll make them _feel_ how wrong they are."

And she knows just where to begin.

_Good choice._

 

 

Ozai is a hybrid creature, half animal and half shadow. His cell is only offered faint illumination from a wall lamp further down the corridor. Azula stands before him, breathes in and rather wishes she hadn't. She would think that the eyes glaring out from the dark were those of a monstrous spirit if not for the ghastly stink of a stale body and its excretions.

Ozai raises his head, matted hair falling across his face.

"Well, if it isn't Princess Azula," the sound of her name scrapes, rusty, from his throat—but even through the bitterness and the brokenness she can still make out the command he used to wield.

"It's Fire Lord Azula now."

"Look at you, playing dress-up," he mocks. "Again."

She wrinkles her nose and looks down at him, rotting in his own filth. "It's understandable that you're jealous, old man," she tells him. "If indeed you can still be called a man."

Ozai raises his hands instinctively, fingers extended, before he realises his mistake. He lowers them again with a clank of iron chains, and simply spits at her instead. He misses, and she laughs at him.

"You really are pathetic, Father."

"How does it feel, then, my child?" Ozai sneers. "Is the throne comfortable beneath your usurping behind? Are your judgments clear and easy and right?"

"Did the Avatar remove all your intelligence when he took your bending? I know better than to think that power is easy, even if it is deserved. I learned that from you, from the war, from my many victories, my few losses, the recovery I have made while you have languished here in abjection—and from my wife."

Ozai splutters. "Your _wife_? Don't tell me you actually married that little circus whore—"

"I did not," she cuts him off. "I formed an alliance with the strongest leader in the entire world besides myself. One swift wedding and I have a stronger foothold in the Earth Empire than you ever managed to gain."

" _Kuvira_? You would sully my family line by connecting it to a _dirtbending slave_? If you had really learned from me you'd never dare. You are no daughter of mine, Azula. And you have lost your grip even more completely than I foresaw would happen when I wisely decided to leave you behind on the day of the Comet."

"That's where you're wrong," Azula tells him. "I learned from you—but I'm using the knowledge in my own way. I will rule better as myself than I would have done as your puppet."

"You don't have what it takes to rule," Ozai growls. "You fall apart without direction, discipline. You are a powerful weapon, but you are useless without a visionary—without _me_ —to wield you."

 _He's kind of right, Azula,_ says Ty Lee. _Just think of how you lost it after things with Mai and me didn't go to plan. You can't cope—_

 _Show him how wrong he is,_ Kuvira croons. _Make him taste it._

"Look around at where your own guidance has led you," Azula tells her father coldly, glancing pointedly around the disgusting, cramped chamber. "A visionary indeed! I'm sure you see such grand things here in the dark. I followed you towards madness, failure and humiliation for too long. I made my own way back, and I know _exactly_ where I'm going now: as far away from you as possible."

"You are nothing without me," Ozai argues, just as his voice in Azula's head has done too many times to count. "I built you into who and what you are. Remove my influence from yourself and you will be left with _scraps_. Every last person on earth knows this truth—you'll never convince them otherwise."

"You're wrong," Azula tells him. "It's you that's nothing without me."

She raises her hands just as he did earlier, but her attempt is not crippled and ineffective. Her lightning gathers, crackling and buzzing and brightening the dark with blue-white so intense that Ozai shields his light-starved eyes.

She holds it, releases, and watches—feels—as it racks his body. His heart leaps and convulses but does not stop, even as he slumps on the damp, grimy cell floor. She listens to his shallow breaths. Such weak sounds after the jagged shouts of electrocution. She could end his feeble respiration right now, if she wanted to—but she intends to make his death provide more benefit than just the vengeful satisfaction it would bring her to snuff him out here, today.


	19. Chapter 19

Bolin shivers in his thin undershirt, Mako's tattered shirt and Baraz's rags. He'd known that the arctic would be cold, but knowing is one thing and actually experiencing the finger-numbing, nose-aching frozenness of the air as they fly through it is another. His knees won't stop doing that wobbling thing where they lock in and out underneath his weight with every involuntary shudder. Mako and Baraz are both very focused on their breathing, keeping themselves heated with their firebending. Bolin would feel bad about taking their outer clothes (which are really not suited to snowy, icy environments anyway. These are _desert clothes_ ) but he's too busy freezing most of the way to death, and honestly too numb to feel anything, including emotions.

For a long time there's been nothing but dark, inhospitable-looking ocean under their balloon. That water has been increasingly filled with icebergs. Bolin did see a whale at one point, which was awesome, but was overshadowed by the painful chattering of his teeth. All of their breath fogs around them, but at least the balloon stays afloat more easily in the colder air. Mako and Baraz have been getting tired, and Bolin knows it's harder to bend a fire into existence when you've got very little heat left in your body. He's not super keen on plunging to an icy death, so he hopes they make landfall before the chill gets to the firebenders.

He peers over the edge of the balloon's basket. Some of the icebergs down below look really _sharp_.

"There," says Ahnah, who's been shivering just slightly less than the rest of them. She points with a shaky hand at what looks like just another set of icy cliff faces.

And then Bolin sees it—the cutaway section of cliff that's smooth and carved. A wall, with a gate. There are watchtowers peeking over the top of it, he notices, as well as a couple on the cliffs on either side. He sees what looks like a little plume of smoke rising from somewhere beyond the wall and his entire body is suddenly electrified with frantic anticipation. Smoke means fire, fire means warmth, warmth means _keeping his fingers and toes attached to the rest of his body_. And Bolin is _all about that_.

"Hey!" he calls out as they get closer. He waves his hands so that the guards in the watchtowers will see. Mako gives him a funny look, but it doesn't temper his enthusiasm very much. They're going to land. They're going to get warm! Bolin's going to be able to _eat_ , and also use a bathroom. All of these things warrant excitement.

They're so close, _so close_ when Baraz collapses against the side of the basket. Ahnah rushes to him, obviously trying to warm some water with her bending. She looks unhappy with the results.

Mako keeps fuelling the balloon with his firebending. His face is set and hard but Bolin knows how to recognise the strain hidden underneath. His brother grits his teeth and the flames he's bending flare a tiny bit higher.

"You can do this, bro," Bolin says, and goes to wrap Mako in a warm hug, share some body heat.

Mako turns away from the embrace, as he has done every time Bolin's tried to hug him during this trip.

"Now isn't the time to be too cool— _ow!—_ for hugs!" Bolin's disobedient, chattering teeth bite down hard on his tongue in the middle of the sentence.

"I just need to focus, okay," Mako replies.

"Fine, fi— hey, they must have seen us!" Bolin sees something flying up from one of the watchtowers towards them. It looks like a—

"Get down!" Ahnah shouts roughly, dragging Baraz to the floor. Bolin crouches in the cramped space too, and tugs on Mako's legs until he follows. The spear hurtles over their heads, and the balloon starts falling with a stomach-dropping jerk. Bolin hears himself shouting more than he feels the noise coming out of his own throat.

"I need to stand back up so I can work the balloon!" Mako hisses, trying to escape from Bolin's grip.

Another shaft whizzes by, and Bolin tentatively raises his eyes to watch as it punctures the fabric of the balloon.

"I don't think that's gonna be an option," he quails as their vessel drops even further, gaining speed. The basket protects them from the air a bit, but the sound of it whipping past them is eerie and terrifying. He clings to Mako.

They make impact with what Bolin knows logically must be water but feels as solid as land. He feels and hears the wicker basket shattering around him and then is plunged into suffocating darkness. His chest is tight, his skin feels like it's been torn off, and the abortive moment in which he opens his eyes doesn't give him a clear picture of anything. He can't feel Mako at his side anymore. His body feels like one big bruise, with needles stabbing through the ache. Bolin knows lots of people say they feel cold right before they die. This must be it for him, then. He should think some kind of profound last thought, but he feels awfully fuzzy and the dark is—

 

 

He sees a pretty face—bright, pale eyes framed with blue makeup and a dark fringe of hair—looming over him. His vision isn't perfect, so the face blurs at the edges, looking kind of glowy and ethereal. Maybe he's in some kind of afterlife place in the spirit world, where people's spirits go before they're reincarnated? He offers up the first flirtatious line that pops into his dizzy head, because if he's already dead then what harm can it do?

"Hey there. Are you a kind spirit, because y—"

"There are no kind spirits," the attractive spirit cuts him off in a voice that's flat and dry and sounds menacing in a bored kind of way, and Bolin hadn't realised that that was a way that anyone could sound, but he knows now, because he's heard it. "There are only spirits who are satisfied or dissatisfied. They may also be controlled by humans with certain abilities. But you are obviously as much one of those humans as I am a spirit."

Bolin's head rings as he tries to process the toneless words. The more he tries to access his brain, to call on it for this task, the more he becomes aware of a splitting ache in his skull.

"So... you're not a spirit?" he asks, wincing at the pain caused by even his own words as he hears them.

"No."

"Then who are you?"

Bolin tries to sit up so he can look around. All he can see right now is bluish white. As he raises his head, though, everything churns. He looks at the not-spirit and suddenly there are two of her, copies standing together, each with their arms linked by hands buried in the drapy blue and white ends of their opposite sleeves.

"We are Eska and Desna, Chief of the Northern Water Tribe."

Bolin is confused. Sure, he may be really disoriented and possibly dead, and possibly not, and possibly going to throw up or pass out in a minute—but he's pretty sure this would be confusing even if he wasn't all those things.

"Is that... one person's name? Eskandesna?"

"We are brother and sister." The voice that speaks this time sounds different. Somewhat lower, very slightly less monotone. Just as bored, though, and just as unsettling. It's good to know that Bolin wasn't seeing double because of a head injury though. The fewer head injuries the better, is what he's always said.

 _Chief of the Northern Water Tribe_... "Wait," he says, fighting the renewed urge to bolt upright. "We made it! We made it to the Water Tribe. That means I'm not dead! Is my brother here?—I mean Mako, my brother is Mako. What about Ahnah and Baraz? Are they safe?"

"They are being treated for their injuries," says Desna.

"Also, Ahnah said the Chief here was Una-something. That's not you, is it?"

"Unalaq. He was our father. He perished in the war. We took his place."

"How can two people be Chief? If Mako and I had to make that many important decisions together we'd rip each other's heads off."

"Desna and I rule in tandem, as we do all things," says Eska. "We satisfy our decapitative impulses by ripping the heads off others instead."

Bolin feels uneasy. He can't really get a sense of whether Eska is joking or not. He chuckles along anyway, though the sound is feeble and forced.

"Aha... head-ripping. Good times. Gotta love some figurative, metaphorical head-ripping."

The twins share a look, decide something Bolin isn't privy to, and nod to one another.

"You need to recover," says Desna. "We will resume our discussions at a later point."

"Hey, no," Bolin starts, "I'm good to talk right now. And then can I see Mako? We should all get together to talk; that would be even better—"

Eska and Desna turn in synchrony and begin to walk away from where Bolin's lying. He tries to swing his legs off the side of the bed and go after them, but his efforts are stopped short by the fact that he's tied down by the ankles.

Not good.

"Hey!" he shouts after the co-Chiefs. "We're not your enemy! We just need your help—and we want to help you, because if things in the Earth Empire get out of hand your tribe might be at risk! You don't need to imprison us!"

His hands aren't bound, and he uses them to tug and rattle at the cuffs on his ankles, but to no avail.

The twins stop, and he hears one of them say, "Do you think we should have his hands restricted as well?"

"Perhaps," the other answers with a contemplative tilt of the head.

"No, no!" Bolin rushes out. "You don't need to do that! I'll cooperate. Let me show you how cooperative I can be! I swear I'm here as a friend!"

He stops trying to break his bonds and lies back, knowing it's no good. If only he was a metalbender, he might be able to escape them. If only he could feel earth under him, instead of lots and lots and _lots_ of ice.

"Show us your cooperation, then, Bolin of the Earth Empire."

So, so not good. "I don't work for Kuvira anymore! I ran away when I found out what she was doing!" he insists.

As the twins make their way out of the room, someone else slips through the door.

"Continue his treatment," they instruct the newcomer, an older woman with similarly dark hair and skin but a much softer expression.

"Yes Chief," she nods respectfully, then turns to Bolin, lifting a glowing bubble of water in her hands. "Please hold still. This won't hurt if you let me do my job."

Bolin doesn't really have a choice, so he lets her lay the glowy water against his chest and endures the cold and the weird tingling sensation that comes with it.

ϟ

 

_You'll never convince them._

The statement haunts Azula after her visit to Ozai's cell. She can feel it like a physical presence, anxious poison leaking through her veins, making them throb and ache. The worry is unwelcome and unnecessary; she saw her people's response when she announced herself as the new Fire Lord, when she married the leader of the Earth Empire.

 _Ozai would never have condoned our alliance,_ Kuvira's voice tells her comfortingly. _You've already begun to make it clear you won't be following in his footsteps._

"Simply beginning isn't enough. I must complete the task."

 _And you will_.

Azula pulls a plain cloak over herself, ready for another evening journey down out of the Caldera to meet with her assassin. She stows the gold she still owes June carefully in her robe, along with her weapons. The exchange could easily be made without meeting in person, but Azula finds herself glad to have a mission to complete, and somewhat anxious to check that the opinions of those who attended her wedding truly match those of the commoners she would find in the streets of the lower capital. It's hardly paranoia simply to want to confirm such a thing for oneself.

She staggers slightly as she stands up in her weighted outfit. The servant dressing her knows better than to mention it—better than to ask whether she's sure she is fit to travel, or to bring up the dizziness that had cut her morning training short. Whatever temporary illness Azula is suffering from will surely pass, and the Fire Lord cannot afford to stop and wait out some inconvenient infection. She cannot imagine the Great Uniter doing such a thing.

She considers taking a servant with her to carry her things, but decides against it. She's meeting the woman she recruited to assassinate the previous Fire Lord. Suspicious or angry servants make for dangerous house pets—she has already been attacked by one, the fool Sego, in recent months.

She goes alone, and if her balance wavers on occasion, she'll most likely be mistaken for a drunk. If preyed upon, her assailants will find themselves regretting their choice.

"You could've just had the gold delivered to me," June says as she sits down beside Azula at the counter of the same tavern in which they met earlier.

Azula shrugs in response. As Fire Lord she hardly needs to justify her whims to the likes of a bounty hunter. "Perhaps I wanted to spend some time among my people," she says.

"Sure," June replies, entirely unconvinced. "You're just a woman of the people, aren't you?"

"I should have you executed for you insolence," Azula tells her dryly.

 _See,_ the voice of Ozai says, _the thought of the people following you is a joke._

"Well, that's one way to make a friend. I'm getting drinks, since it's pay day. You still unnaturally sober?"

Azula answers with a flick of the hand to shoo June away. She sits alone and sharpens her ears to gauge with more precision the sounds mingling in the hubbub around her. She hears her name mentioned by one of the men at the table behind her, after a terribly ill-informed discussion about how to tell real dragon hide from imitation. The first speaker sounds relatively young, and vocalises everything as though he's playing some kind of street sporting game. His friends cheer and howl in a similar manner at seemingly arbitrary intervals.

"Azula? Bitch is crazy," the young man says. "So crazy I wouldn't even want a piece of that."

"Nah," says another one. "Wouldn't stop me—just think of that tight little waist," he must make a lewd expression or hand gesture that Azula can't see, because his friends laugh uproariously and the lip-smacking sounds of another sloppy round of drinks follows. Azula tries not to squirm. None of what these buffoons say means anything to anyone, least of all her.

"Do you buy her _I'm not like Ozai_ shtick, Ikow?" a third man asks.

"Who fucking cares? Not all of us can afford to run off and join the rebels in Yu Dao just to feel righteous, like your daddy. 'Sides, I don't wanna go to the colonies. Your old man only went 'cause he was chasin' tail anyways."

More laughs ensue, as well as some _ooohs_ that seem to anticipate a fight breaking out.

"You should care. I know what happened to your ma, your brother. If Fire Lord Azula's nothing more than another Ozai then it'll be your father, your sisters and your brother in law next."

"If I hafta listen to this ostrich-horseshit I want another drink."

"Me, I'm not scared of another war."

"I don't even think the crazy bitch has got the guts anymore. Marrying an earthbender? She's let herself be strongarmed. Or worse, she's actually gone completely soft and _believes_ this shit about an alliance. I don't like it either way. The war ruined her, 'swhat I reckon. She couldn't take Ba Sing Se and now she's bowing to the dirt people instead."

"Enjoying the eavesdropping?" June asks, returning with a drink in either hand and a third cup balanced in between.

"Enjoying the damage to your liver?"

June sips the first drink, shutting her eyes in a display of exaggerated bliss as she does so.

"Mmm, yep," she sighs. "I really am."

_I don't even think the crazy bitch has got the guts anymore._

Ozai laughs underneath a rolling track of the inebriated tavern patrons' spite.

_I told you so._

_I told you so._

"Okay, but imagine the two of them," the next table's discussion continues. "The metalbender, right, that'd be some kinky shit. You said you wouldn't touch her with all the crazy, but you can't deny you'd watch."

"I reckon the Great Uniter'd get her down on her knees and make her—"

Azula stands abruptly. June looks amused, but then she is one of these crude people—above them in terms of her skill set, but no more respectable.

"I think you're forgetting something," the bounty hunter reminds her, and Azula lowers herself back into her chair so that she can slip June's payment to her around the table.

She rises again and leaves without a word. She's entertained a few thoughts on how best to use Ozai to her advantage since visiting him, but she is even more motivated now. Her people, loath as she is to have to appeal to their blunt, bawdy minds, need a reminder of her strength, a sign that she is neither softened nor broken.

The walk back is marred with unsteady cobblestones and her breath comes hard and dry, grating at her throat by the time she has ascended to the Caldera again. The hidden tunnels leading back up to it are both winding and steep even if they are preferable to the stairs frequented by the masses. She collapses on her bed as soon as she arrives home, and forbids her servants from trying to move or undress her. The increasingly insistent suggestions of rest she's been receiving from her body are now demands, no longer avoidable or even negotiable. Perhaps heeding them this once will cure her of her strange exhaustion. The stench of the tavern and the dirt of the lower capital cling to her, but they are for the future Azula to tend to. The present one has already melded with the mattress underneath her.


	20. Chapter 20

Kuvira lands in the square outside Ba Sing Se's palace with questions on her tongue. Some of them are aimed at the Dai Li agents who greet her, so she deals with those first.

"Why is there now a small slum outside the south-west entrance of the city?" she asks Long Guon, who has been bowing with an energy that almost dizzies her.

"Great Uniter," he says, "it is my honour to welcome you back—"

"The only welcome I require is an explanation," she says. Back on her own turf, the authority of the Great Uniter sits more easily upon her, within her. She strides across the earth and feels the difference in her walk, her posture. It's strange that her surroundings can affect her this way when she's spent such large portions of her life without a static home.

"Of course, Great Uniter. I believe the camp consists of non-earth refugees who were removed after causing trouble in the lower ring."

She raises a questioning brow at him and he quivers slightly. He seems genuine in his respect for her—overzealous, even. _But_...

"Where was my second-in-command in all of this?" she asks. Bolin is not the kind of man who'd authorise the expulsion of refugees from the city. She's been at pains to keep the extent of the lower ring's issues from him. His bleeding heart would have distracted him from the bigger picture.

Even Kuvira, being prepared to make the tough choices, isn't certain she'd have authorised this move. Perhaps leaving the Dai Li to keep order in their usual way and assuming it would benefit her had been a mistake.

"Great Uniter, we beg your forgiveness, but Master Bolin has disappeared."

Kuvira grinds her teeth and inhales sharply through her nose, both to hold back her anger and to demonstrate to her agents how close they are to facing it head-on.

"And Opal?" she asks.

"We have her in custody," Long Guon assures her. His shoulders even relax somewhat; this is a topic he is comfortable with. "As per your instructions, we have staid the order for re-education."

"You're a very lucky man, Long Guon," Kuvira tells him. "Lucky that you and your men have not failed me in _every_ possible capacity. If you are as loyal to me as you say you are—"

"We are, Great Unite—"

She scowls at the interruption. " _Quiet!_ If you want to prove your loyalty, begin by _listening to my orders_. Follow that with obeying them. For a start: have your people escort the refugees back into the city. Isolate any ringleaders or major troublemakers and bring them in for re-education; process and conscript the remainder. Then you will locate Bolin—whether he's still in the city or halfway to the south pole—and you will bring him to me."

"But Great Uniter, we—"

"Have undermined my authority. Now, Long Guon, do you answer to me or not?"

Long Guon looks at her boots and quakes in his own as he says, "We do, Great Uniter. The Dai Li was simply acting in what we believed were your best interests, in your absence."

There's something about the way he says it. It's the truth—that much is clear—but there's something else in it too. An edge of contempt that arises at the mention of Bolin. Like they believe it is best for her to be rid of him. She wonders (not at all) who Long Guon would suggest take Bolin's place at her right hand.

"And your beliefs were misguided," she reprimands him sharply. Now is not the time to install a new Dai Li leader, especially not when this one's loyalties do lie in the right place, but it's evidently time to shorten his leash. "I appointed someone to decide what my best interests were, and you clearly disagreed with my choice. I don't know how much of a hand in driving him out you and your agents had, but if you can't fix the situation I will attribute _all_ responsibility to you."

"We will fix it, your eminence," says Long Guon.

She leaves the guards to bring her minimal luggage in from the airship and makes her way into the palace. As she enters, Varrick leaps off the throne in an explosion of flailing limbs. To one side of him, Zhu Li sighs as she goes about pouring tea with one hand and flipping through papers with the other. Kuvira is very impressed that she can do both at once. She sometimes sees Zhu Li and wonders whether paper-bending is a thing—but it wouldn't explain all the other minor superpowers the woman seems to have.

"Varrick," she greets her left-hand man in a tone that's designed to convey both _I know you were sitting in my chair_ and _I need you so I'm not going to punish you for it_.

"Kuvira!" he says, with his usual confronting enthusiasm. It seems to build up like an explosive inside him. "Boy are we glad to see you again! I haven't been able to find Bolin anywhere for days!"

"That's because he's gone, Sir," Zhu Li supplies dutifully.

"But gone _where_ , Zhu Li? Gone _where_?" Varrick's eyes grow wide, mystified. "How do we know he hasn't turned invisible all of a sudden? What if he's in this very room and we just _can't see him_? How's that invisibility device I ordered coming, Zhu Li?"

Kuvira resists the urge to slam the heel of her hand repeatedly into her forehead.

"Varrick," she shushes him, "I believe Bolin may have left the city."

"What?" Varick raises his arms. "He took a holiday and didn't even tell me? I didn't know we were allowed holidays, or I'd be lying in the middle of an oasis being served lychee-cactus cocktails by trained otter-penguins right now! Zhu Li, why didn't—"

"You do not have holidays, Varrick. We will all take well-deserved holidays once the Earth Empire has secured order across the world, but until then we have too many important things to do."

Varrick frowns. "Then why is Bolin on holiday?"

Kuvira looks to Zhu Li, who nods. "I'll explain it to you later, Sir," she tells Varrick, who seems satisfied with that. They have a very strange dynamic, Kuvira thinks. It doesn't seem like it should work; Zhu Li must be attached to Varrick in a personal sense, otherwise she'd have looked for more dignified employment elsewhere. It isn't ideal; personal attachments are stickier to negotiate than professional ones.

Speaking of which.

"Varrick, I'd like to speak with you about some design projects I think will interest you. Be in meeting room one in an hour's time."

Kuvira retires to her room upstairs in the palace. It is not the room previously inhabited by Kuei, and as such boasts nothing like the finery of the Fire Nation's royal accommodation. Finery is a waste and a distraction. She stands at the window and looks past the reflection of her face in the glass, down at the maze of streets and buildings in the upper ring, just beyond the palace grounds. They look like uncovered scorpion-ant tunnels. The vastness of this city of hers always strikes her when she views it from up here, seeing so much and still knowing that it sprawls out much further than her eyes can see. Ba Sing Se is practically a country of its own. Ruling over it is certainly as complex as governing a country—and this city is only the epicentre of her empire.

She sits on the fresh, crisp sheets of her bed, finds them coarse after sleeping on such rich materials in the Fire Nation. She had expected some burst of familiarity to overtake her when she arrived back here, to cleanse her mind of all the things that have been clouding it, to show her the way forward by resetting her instincts. She is disappointed in that regard. Everything she sees or touches here now calls to mind its Fire Nation equivalent. Even the cold scent of the stone building begs comparison with the Fire Nation's woody fragrance.

All of this brings her back to the questions she'd had time to mull over on the flight back here. Some were aimed at herself.

"What have you actually achieved in all this?" she demands, aloud, and turns to the small mirror hung on the wall to her left. She looks back at herself with too much uncertainty in her eyes. She corrects the expression.

"You have a foothold in the Fire Nation, yes, but a foothold is only potential. What have you _actually_ gained?"

_A wife_ , some part of her mind suggests—but that is not the kind of answer she is looking for at all. Simply gaining a wife does nothing for her empire. All the apparent attachment and mutual respect in the world between herself and Azula, and their respective countries, would matter little if she failed to fulfil her purpose and take back the land that was stolen from her people.

She's been telling herself that she's on the path to achieving that goal, but in reality she hasn't even tried to ask about the colonies yet. She has been distracted by the cold woman who bends such bright heat and secretly melts under Kuvira's touch. She has been distracted by the screams of pain and the screams of pleasure, all the duplicitous words, the game of them—but a player does not win at pai sho by admiring her opponent's hands as they slide pieces around the board.

Kuvira has made nice with Azula, but she'll be damned if she comes out of this whole negotiation with a weaker bargaining position than she entered with. The Fire Lord has prided herself publicly on her ability to ensnare the Great Uniter as an ally, and it's past time for Kuvira to test that alliance, to test Azula's pride and to restore her own and her people's.

Varrick is actually on time to their meeting, and Kuvira acknowledges that as she sits at the head of the long table. She spreads the large pieces of parchment she brought with her out across the tabletop. These are the other result of her time to think aboard the airship.

"Wow, look at those things," Varrick exclaims, taking in the drawings and specifications on the pages. "What idiot designed _that_ one?"

Kuvira swallows. "My ex-fiancé, actually," she says. She doesn't need to scare him any more than that.

"Ah," he scratches the back of his neck and leans down to assess the designs again. "Well, he was on to something with this one."

"These are only rough drafts," Kuvira qualifies. "I'd have had him finish them, but the war takes its toll."

"It does indeed," Varrick sounds less flippant than expected. Still not respectful, but then he doesn't have a respectful bone in his body. From the way he conducts himself, few people could even accuse him of _self_ -respect. "So, what do you want me to do with these?"

"I want you to spend some time looking over them more closely, and then make these designs into something we can realise. Think big."

"Oh, I can think big!" Varrick assures her. "But this'll have to wait until approximately three fifteen tomorrow afternoon—"

"You'll start immediately. I'd like some preliminary ideas brought to me by tomorrow. You're one of the brightest minds in the world, Varrick. Now is the time to act like it."

 

ϟ

 

Azula does not rise with the sun.

_She couldn't take Ba Sing Se and now she's bowing to the dirt people instead._

She raises her face from where it is buried in her pillow. She feels very uncomfortable. Something hard is jabbing bruisingly into her hip, her shoulders ache, her throat is raw and filled with a taste as horrible as Zuko's tea, and her whole body feels bound far more tightly than it ought to be by soft sheets. She rolls over and cannot escape the presence of the tangled fabrics, the uncomfortable poking objects. The sheets wind around her too tightly and panic flares in her chest. She struggles against her bonds and realises that her travel cloak has half-enveloped her. She is still wearing _shoes_.

Her head throbs, and a bright needle of sunlight glares in through her window, where one of her curtains is failing in its duty.

The sun is already well and truly awake, but it isn't helping her. Azula remembers feeling far more awake than this on the day of the solar eclipse. She remembers feeling more awake than this in her cell—at least on the days they brought her rice and meat scraps to eat.

She lies in bed for several minutes more before her disgust grows strong enough to fuel the act of getting up and shedding her filthy attire from the previous night. She calls her servants to take the clothes away and provide her with a bath.

As she waits, she pens an ambitious letter. It is brief, but the money she attaches to it does more talking than the body text. She seals it and gives it to one of the servants to send, then steps into her waiting bath.

"The Lady Mai has been asking after you, Fire Lord," another servant tells her as she rubs oils into Azula's hair. "Breakfast began fifteen minutes ago."

Azula is startled. With Mai as her most competent ally, Azula hasn't bothered to change the habit of serving breakfast in the late morning, when Mai prefers it. If breakfast has already begun then it must be much closer to _midday_ than sunrise.

"And why did no one wake me at an acceptable hour?" she snaps.

The servant's hands slip minutely but continue their work. "It was assumed that if you were sleeping through the morning then it was your decision to do so, Fire Lord," she says. "We would not disturb your royal slumber unless we had been instructed to do so."

Azula feels some of the tension ebb from her body as she soaks in the hot water and smells the pleasant scent seeping into her hair. The servant's reasoning is sound, she decides, as much as she wants to blame someone else for this inexplicable slip-up. To reprimand anyone for the mistake would be to admit it _was_ a mistake.

"You were right not to wake me," she says. Then, to balance out this act of forgiveness, she snaps, "And brush more softly, unless you want to be responsible for the baldness of your Fire Lord."

The servant's brushing lightens immediately. "Of course, your highness."

"Tell Mai that I will not be at breakfast today," she sinks further into the water, until it laps at her lower lip. "I will summon her to me when I am ready. She should bring more tea. And someone should prepare a selection of my favourites for me to eat once I'm done soaking."

"Very good, Fire Lord."

 

 

"What's going on with you?" Mai asks when she comes by Azula's rooms.

"Nothing," Azula responds, as though the question is entirely stupid. Mai doesn't press the issue, just shrugs like she doesn't actually care. Sometimes Mai's apathy is convenient. "I've decided to host an execution, to remind my people that I mean business."

Mai's eyes widen infinitesimally. "War criminals?" she asks. The Boiling Rock and the Capital prisons are full of traitors and convicts from the war, even after Zuko released or extradited all non-Fire Nation prisoners.

Azula bares her teeth in something that turns out as more a snarl than a smile. "One in particular."

Mai waits.

"Call together an audience—everyone of any importance should be there—to witness the death of the country's most nefarious war criminal and traitor: former Fire Lord Ozai."

Mai keeps her thoughts to herself, and simply asks, "When?"

Azula has already wasted half of this day on her own weakness; she would rather spend the rest of it in strength. "Why wait? Today is as good a day as any to watch him burn."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You will have blood in the next chapter - but you'll have to wait a few weeks for it. You'll also have Asami Sato. So, y'know, there are things to stick around for.


	21. Chapter 21

The crowd roars. Evidently the surprises and gossip-fuel that attendees at Azula's last major public announcement were able to witness have tempted more people—whether they are curious, furious, or supportive—out to watch today's proceedings. Azula doesn't care why they're here, just that they are and that they see what she wants them to see.

She doesn't look down on them all from the balcony this time; she stands on the front steps of that palace, a path cleared in front of her and lined with guards. At the other end of the path is the pyre her father will soon die upon. It's well into the afternoon and the sunlight is beginning to mellow. She considers, for a moment, conducting the execution after nightfall; letting him die in the dark, when the sun has turned its face away. The insult of such a thought brings a smile to her lips, but there's no practicality in postponing the event now, and Azula is every bit as impatient as the rest of the congregation.

Ozai is brought out by a group of guards. His chains clank around his wrists and ankles, grubby rags baring sallow skin for all to see, the satin hair that was once combed up into the highest hairpiece in the land now unwashed and infested. It's little wonder those gathered around don't recognise him at first.

Azula plans to keep her speech today short; actions will do most of her talking for her. She steps forward and raises her arms, calling for the crowd to silence itself.

"Citizens of the Fire Nation," she cries out. "The last time I stood before you, I defeated your greatest enemy by making her a friend."

She can't hear him, but Ozai's shoulders have begun to shake with laugher.

"Today, I remind you of the unfortunate truth that not everyone is so clear-sighted as to want friendship with us. Some such enemies even live among us. Today, I remind you of my promise to step away from the legacy and the mistakes of my predecessor, Ozai. Today, I seal that promise with his blood."

The guards have been chaining Ozai to the pyre during Azula's address, and it seems the crowd has finally begun to recognise him by what small slices of his face are visible through the curtain of greasy hair falling over it.

"This man, the former Fire Lord, shamed and betrayed our nation when he threw off its highest title and used the power of Sozin's comet for his own selfish and irrational conquest. The Avatar saw fit to strip him of his firebending and his freedom, but it is time for us to strip ourselves of him, a stain on our dignity, once and for all. Time to move decisively into a new age by severing ties with the old one.

"To everyone who takes these historic steps with me: I give you this day as a celebration. To anyone who doubts my commitment to my promises: I give you this day as an affirmation. And to anyone who would dare betray this nation, its people, its leader: I give you this day as a final warning."

Azula approaches the pyre, pacing leisurely with her chin held high. It is not customary to give traitors last words, and she has no intention of allowing Ozai to spread any more of his poison. He is gagged with a piece of fabric, hunched against the pole at his back.

His laugh drags her pulse into its erratic rhythm regardless, as it builds in her like a headache.

 _Go ahead,_ taunts his voice in her mind _. Do it, if you can._

Azula reaches into her pocket and pulls out a pair of spark rocks.

"You have been found guilty of treason," she tells the prisoner. "As Fire Lord, supreme ruler of this land and highest enforcer of its laws, I sentence you to death."

She had some practice at using spark rocks effectively while her firebending was inaccessible to her, and even though she despised such inferior firemaking techniques as a child and teenager she had made sure she could use them then too, in case she ever had need of them as a last resort, or as a symbol in this kind of situation. She strikes the ones in her hands now and has a small flame kindling in good time. The fire spreads slowly, smoking into the lungs of its human fuel.

None of the bystanders need to be told what it means that he is not dying by Azula's personal flame, or by any other firebender's. This fire should still cleanse Ozai's soul as it leaves its current body and moves on to its next life (a life to be spent slogging away at the dirt in some Earth Empire mine, if the spirits have any sense of justice) but it does not afford him even a semblance of the honour that death by Agni Kai would. He was not burned by a worthy opponent. He was defeated by two small stones, some wood and some oil.

It takes a long time, even with the help of the oil Ozai has been doused with. He sweats profusely and coughs in the smoke for so long before the full brunt of the searing heat reaches his skin that Azula is half convinced he will die from the poisonous air alone. She is gratified that he is still alive and snivelling when the flames grow high and close enough to touch him.

Some members of the crowd have grown bored with the very gradual proceedings (or been disturbed by them, though Azula would think that members of this nation, having lived through the war, would have witnessed a burning death before) and departed. All those who Azula has happened to make eye contact with over the course of the event have stayed to see it through from their places in the front rows. There are certain sections of the crowd that periodically band together in chants or gory songs. Their voices are layered over Ozai's as his desperate, trapped whimpers give way to wilder screams. The bright orange fire laps at him, climbs energetically up his ragged, oil-soaked clothing, turns his hair into light, and finally engulfs him.

She has defied her father more completely than ever before, and now he is gone. Now he will stop haunting her. Now she has proven she does not belong to him.

She can smell him as burnt meat on the hot, smoky breeze.

The chants and the dying wails and the crackling of carnivorous flames combined do not drown out the words Azula hears spoken to her:

 _This is exactly what I would have done_. Ozai's ghost sounds both mocking and proud. She isn't sure which sickens her more.

Ozai is dead, and the pyre is nothing more than a flaming heap of rubbish, so she turns on her heel and takes one purposeful stride after the next, pushing past guards and servants until she's free to vomit up the ashen taste of him behind closed doors.

 

ϟ

 

The drinks at the Jasmine Dragon really are good, but even the best cup of ginger tea can't soothe the frustration Asami is feeling. It's the same every time her father goes to hammer out a deal without her. She's a businesswoman in her own right, certainly not a child anymore, and she's as much the mastermind of the family company as he is. It isn't even like he's gone to some boys' club for the meeting he's currently in; Varrick may be a pig sometimes but no one could ever accuse the Great Uniter of doubting young women's capabilities, given that she is one.

The only reason Asami can think of is that her father is trying to protect her—as though he's forgotten the self-defence classes he put her through as a child, and the _military service_ she undertook for a handful of years after turning sixteen. There are jagged memories she could pull out of herself like sizeable shards of glass and wave in front of his face to show him how even she is sometimes stunned by her own ability to survive.

But now the war is over, officially, and Asami is sitting alone at a small table in the corner of Ba Sing Se's premier tea shop, watching as the staff shuffle around the place in their aprons, carrying trays of steaming tea to serve their many patrons. She looks down at the cup in her hand and then tips it back with a decisive motion. It's still too hot, and she feels it all the way down. She can't taste the next sips too well, but at least the pain distracts her.

"Rough day?"

Asami starts at the sound of a voice close by. Her eyes shoot up to look at what she expects to be the face of some strange man who doesn't know what he's getting himself into, trying to flirt with her. It's an assumption built into her by altogether too much experience. The only time she could get a little peace while sitting in a tavern, restaurant or any other kind of establishment was when she was serving. The braid she'd kept her hair in early on had caught fire, so she'd hacked almost all of it off. The blood from a split lip was the closest she'd come to wearing makeup. Bruises for eyeshadow. There had still been rude men to deal with, but Asami the soldier was able to deal with them differently than Asami the heiress.

She doesn't necessarily prefer one self to the other, but at least Asami the soldier had been told to _do_ things—dangerous, painful and muddy things—instead of being ordered to sit and do nothing and look happy about it.

With her thumb, she wipes a semicircle of dark plum lipstick from the rim of the tea cup. Then she takes in the person leaning on the opposite side of her table: he's not a random stranger, but one of the shop workers, green-trimmed apron and all.

"Not rough so much as boring," she answers his question, and nods to let him know he can sit down if he wants. She has no particular desire to be left alone right now; if she did, she'd just have waited for her father aboard the airship they flew in on.

He cracks a smile as he takes a seat. "I know a thing or two about that," he laughs. "My name's Lee, by the way."

"Asami."

Lee has a way about him that comes across as earnest and defensive at the same time. She's sure some of the complications in his demeanour have their roots in the large burn scar that covers his left eye. It looks well-healed, for what that's worth. A reasonably old wound. It looks very like the scar that Fire Lord Zuko has—and that statement is slipping off her burnt tongue before she can stop it, convince it that there are bound to be lots of people with burn scars after a war of fire, remind it that she even has a few herself.

Lee looks uncomfortable at the comparison with the Fire Lord, but shrugs. "I get that a lot."

Beyond the scar, he is pretty in a very Fire Nation kind of way, with sleek black hair that's tied low behind his neck right now but would surely be suited to a topknot if he went with the fashions of the land he clearly hails from. Asami notes his attractiveness in an objective sense; Fire-Nation-pretty is something she likes as much as the next half-Fire-Nation girl, but it so happens her tastes are favouring Water-Tribe-pretty right now. Not that _pretty_ will ever be a strong enough word for what Korra is.

"Don't you need to be working?" she asks Lee—out of curiosity, not as a suggestion that he leave.

He shakes his head. "My uncle said I should take a break," he explains, and looks over his shoulder at the white-haired, jolly man back at the counter. Who is watching them whenever he can spare a glance. "I think he thinks I've come to talk to you so I can ask you on a date."

Judging by the scowl on Lee's face when he says this, asking Asami out is not his motive.

"I hate to disappoint, but my affections have someone else's name on them."

"He's a lucky guy," Lee says, obviously more relaxed now that both their intentions are clear.

She leans in conspiratorially and says, "She's not a guy."

His eyes widen, but he regains himself. "Oh. Uh, she's a lucky woman, then?"

" _I'm_ a lucky woman."

"Then you're clearly meant for each other."

"Why did you come to talk to me?"

"I..." he looks down as though slightly ashamed, and Asami knows.

"You already knew who I was," she answers for him, tone and expression hardening. "So, is there something you want?"

"No—well, yes—maybe. I wanted to ask a question, first of all. I'm guessing you came here on an airship," he pauses, waits for confirmation.

She watches this _Lee_ more closely now that he's confessed his prior knowledge of her. It's true that her face is associated with the Sato brand, but that hardly means every ordinary man on the streets of Ba Sing Se would pick her out of the crowd. There could be something more to him after all—and if there is, she's going to figure it out.

"The latest Future Industries model," Asami humours his question. "Not that I've parked it outside your store, so I don't see what it is to you."

He is cowed by her change in demeanour. "I was only wondering whether, when you flew in, you saw a group of people camped outside the city. Probably near the south-west entrance. They're refugees who were forced out of the city."

"That's... not what I was expecting you to ask," Asami says, thinking out loud. "But now that you mention it, I did see some people there—and what looked like a little town of earth huts. Why are you asking me about them?"

"Well, firstly because I wanted to know if they were still there. I gave— I, uh, heard from a reliable source that some of them had gone to look for help, but they should be back by now if they found it."

Lee rubs his fingers into his forehead. It's a gesture that slots the final piece into place in Asami's mind. She's only ever seen Fire Lord Zuko from a distance, when he'd been in a meeting with her father and several other officials and industry men, regarding the status of Yu Dao. She'd barely caught a glimpse through the door, but she'd seen him make the same motion. That, together with the scar, the Fire Nation looks... Asami, like many others, had assumed Azula's speech about him going wandering had meant he'd been assassinated.

She studies his face for another, longer moment, and is suddenly so certain she can't see why anyone around her has missed the fact. He sees her looking, but doesn't ask why. She doesn't tell him what she's figured out, but she returns to their conversation with renewed interest, knowing his position.  

"They don't have enough to eat out there in the desert," Zuko continues. "So my next question for you was actually a favour."

He waits, no doubt expecting to be told where he can shove his _favour_. Asami remembers the time she spend stationed in the Si Wong. Her eyes smart at the mere memory of the gritty desert winds, and the goggles she'd had to wear whenever she went out into those winds are a phantom ache at her temples and across her nose. She remembers the insects that had supplemented every meal out there. The furtive sips of cactus juice the troops had taken from flasks to wet their parched mouths when they could get away with it. She remembers the sandstorm that tore apart one of their sandsailers and the sand shark that had killed two of their patrol, one of them while fending off an attack on Asami as she frantically fixed the broken vehicle.

"I'll talk to my father, try to convince him to take them back with us," she tells Zuko, who looks stunned. "I don't like the idea of people being stuck out there in those conditions," is all the explanation she offers, and he doesn't look a gift ostrich-horse in the mouth.

They are interrupted by a sharp crash from behind the shop's counter, in the area out back. Asami can't see whatever's happened in there, but she knows the sound of china breaking when she hears it.

Zuko's shoulders leap up at the noise, and he's out of his chair even before the older shopkeeper calls, "Lee! I am afraid your break is over!"

"Sorry," he excuses himself. "We've got a, uh, new employee—he's like a sabre-toothed moose-lion in a china shop."

Asami frowns. "Doesn't seem like the kind of person you'd hire to work in a place like this, then," she points out.

Zuko's face softens, oddly enough, like melting butter. "I know, but he's a friend," he says fondly, and Asami realises two very significant things in that moment. The first is that the word _friend_ is not quite the right one to describe what this person means to Zuko. The second, following logically on from the first, is that the Fire Lord (on top of being alive and well in Ba Sing Se) has actually _found_ the missing Avatar.

Asami's almost not sorry that her father left her out of the negotiations today. She doesn't know precisely what power this knowledge gives her just yet, but it certainly feels heavy with potential, like her dual swords at her side.


	22. Chapter 22

Long Guon comes to Kuvira in the middle of the night, just as she's finally drifted off to sleep.

"Great Uniter," he says, still clad in his full Dai Li outfit. He must be standing guard tonight.

She rises, furrows her brow and refuses to feel underdressed before him. Full military dress or cotton pyjamas, she is his commander.

"You had better have a _very_ good reason for disturbing me," she growls the sleepy hoarseness out of her voice.

Long Guon bows, as usual.

"I believed you would want to see this immediately," he says, and presents her with a scroll, curled up loosely, wax seal already broken.

The letter is addressed to Long Guon personally. She reads through the characters printed on the page and wonders whether her sleepy eyes are deceiving her. Whether she will soon wake up and find that this was nothing but a clumsily-constructed, paranoid dream.

"You'll find writing equipment in my desk against the far wall. Then, you should come here and sit down," she instructs her agent. "This is what you're going to write in return..."

 

ϟ

 

Katara's meeting is supposed to be early the next morning, but she can't sleep with the sounds of Ozai's execution still playing in her ears. She slips out of bed, lights enough candles to illuminate her room, and dresses slowly to pass the time.

She stayed at the execution until Azula left, keeping an eye on things because _someone has to keep an eye on things_ , but now she wishes she hadn't done so. All there was to see was a celebration of cold-blooded violence—coldness not at all balanced out by the heat of the method.

Azula watched on, face either expressionless or displaying a terrible kind of satisfaction. Katara can't imagine what it must take for a person to feel that way about killing their own parent so brutally. It isn't that Ozai himself deserved better; Katara would have been entirely supportive of Aang ending his life to finish the war. She'd been entirely prepared to do it herself if it had come to that. But Katara never knew Ozai as anything but an enemy. She never had any affection for him, or any connection to him at all beyond blaming him for the suffering of the war. Azula, on the other hand, always seemed very close to him. She always followed his orders. She even tried to rename Omashu in his honour, before the Earth Empire took the city. He was her father. Katara can't imagine how it must feel for someone to kill their own father that way.

She remembers Zuko, the awkward, shaggy-haired boy trying to prove his reformation to their group by preparing Aang to face the then Fire Lord. The way he'd confused the words _father_ and _fire_. He'd been prepared to accept the fact that his father would die—but he was never, ever going to be the one to deal that final blow. Not even when the man had scarred his face, humiliated and banished him as little more than a child.

Ozai hadn't treated Azula that way. She had been the favoured one.

Katara thinks of the way the fire climbed over his skin like it was alive. There was something about the stillness of the scene surrounding him as he burned, in comparison to the battles Katara has witnessed, that made it different, more confronting. No mayhem to obscure it, no frantic clashing of armies all fighting for their lives to complicate the cruelty.

She puts on her shoes, ties back her hair and fastens one of the deep red cloaks that Zuko included in her Fire Nation wardrobe around her neck. She might as well leave now, since she's ready. It's easier to sneak out unnoticed under cover of darkness—not that Katara can't do it when the sun is up. She goes the long way down from the Caldera, rather than taking the tunnels, which are guarded and nowhere near as scenic. The stairs of her chosen path are steep and narrow in places but she likes the plants that grow by them, the night sky over her head. She recognises fire lilies from their leaves, although they aren't in bloom at the moment. She's been doing her best to separate their beauty from the ugliness of bending the water inside living things, as Hama taught her to. Still, as she passes them, she can feel the liquid that runs through each of the leaves' tiny veins. She knows each of the fine roots that twist down into the damp soil, parting around the occasional stone. She wonders whether this is what it feels like for Toph all the time.

The moon pulls her power to the surface, so that it shimmers right beneath her skin like a cool, silvery blush. Restless, she passes on that feeling to the plants, which quiver faintly at the touch of her bending, as though rustled by a breeze despite the perfect stillness of the night.

Unlearning is a surprisingly difficult process, and she's still working on it.

Katara traipses through the streets of the lower capital, the peninsula, until she reaches the docks. There's a man who hires out boats there, Lee—with a two-pronged white beard that distinguishes him far more than his name does—who has left a small dinghy in the water waiting for her. She's paid him handsomely enough on previous occasions that he trusts her to pay him after she returns the little vessel. A tiny, leaky thing, it'd probably be worth more to old two-beard Lee as firewood if it weren't for her business. Katara's waterbending is the only thing that makes it seaworthy enough for the journey she's about to make.

The night is calm, making it easy for Katara to whip up the water behind her and speed across the glassy surface. There's minimal swell even out on the open ocean. The moonlight is dazzling, mirrored on the horizon, and she breathes deeply and evenly despite the way bending in the same position for a prolonged period tires her. Mentally, it's out here that she's least tired.

The night has not been so calm in Yu Dao.

By the time Katara climbs out of her little boat at her destination, the dawn has just begun to break, peach and yellow in the sky. Admittedly, this part of the world is a few hours ahead of her starting point, so the trip would have been shorter than it now seems.

There are the morning calls of flocks of birds in the trees, but underneath them are the cries of a human crowd. She moves cautiously into the town centre, taking note of the piles of rubble where Mayor Morishita's newly-opened colonial museum and an earthbender daycare had been on her last visit. The remains are burnt, all charred earth and dull ash, but that doesn't tell her how either fire was started, let alone by whom. She just hopes against hope that whoever destroyed the daycare did it overnight, and that nobody was squatting there at the time. She wonders whether Suyin knows anything about it—whether she might know too much. The broken museum reeks of her involvement.

There's a squabble in the town square between police under Morishita's authority, and two separate groups of civilians. Katara recognises a few of the faces in one group as earth people who supported the Harmony Restoration Movement before it was abandoned. There are a couple of Fire Nation citizens among them, too—but most of the Fire Nation people gathered here are in the other group right now. This other group is a mix of Earth and Fire, including people wearing items associated with both nations at once. The grumpy face of Kori Morishita, the mayor's daughter, stands out from amongst them. Kori marches with an assurance that says she knows who the local law enforcement answer to. Her strange fringe of hair bounces over the sides of her forehead. Katara's never been able to look at her without being reminded of Azula's hair on the day of Sozin's comet. Kori looks like Azula would have if she'd sliced off both her bangs evenly around eyebrow level. The bow she wears in place of a topknot is not, however, something Katara can imagine Azula adopting.

Perhaps she should tell Ty Lee about these thoughts. She might find them funny, if Katara chooses a good day to make the comments, a day when mentions of Azula don't send her quiet. Thoughts of Ty Lee now are accompanied by the remembered tingle of just-kissed lips, and a wash of confusion in Katara's gut that's at once hot and cold.

She moves away from the thought and focuses on what's in front of her, scanning the crowd for the faces of Su and those of her associates Katara knows by sight. Her attention catches on a patch of shadow, an alley between two shops with darkened windows. Two figures—dressed in what colours, Katara can't see—are running away from the main square. They're sprinting, so unless they're playing a friendly but intense game of tag in the middle of a protest in the pale of the morning, there's something suspicious about their movement.

Katara sweeps her eyes across the rest of the shadowy alcoves and sees another runner several yards away, just a hint of blurry movement behind the mostly stationary crowd. They're moving in the opposite direction, but still away from the scene, away from the square.

There's no more time to wonder what she should do, because a split second later explosive bangs are breaking the air, screams following close behind like thunder after lightning. She's moving, instinctively, towards the sounds of people who need help when another explosion goes off. The world crumples in a sudden rush of sound and force, and it takes Katara with it.

 

ϟ

 

"There have been coordinated attacks across the nation, including the colonies," says Minster Talizo. The stern politician looks very different without her usual severe hairstyle. Mai would never have guessed that her wire-grey hair had a natural curl to it.

She fights off the urge to make some cutting remark about the woman's dishevelled appearance, and instead thanks her for reporting here as her first point of contact. Mai herself is only wearing her nightrobe, not that she really cares. It's a nice robe; black, silken, and more expensive than most of what Minister Talizo owns despite her wealth as a noblewoman.

"Keep this under wraps," Mai instructs her. "Understand? Don't spread panic—and there'll be no need to go to the Fire Lord directly. I will pass on the relevant information to her; she doesn't like to be bothered with circuitous explanations from politicians."

Talizo glares, then remembers herself. Or rather, remembers the all money she embezzled in her position at the tax office during the war and how little good it would do her career if that information got out. Under the current Fire Lord, it's not unlikely that she'd be killed for it—and with Ozai's execution just a day behind them, that possibility is sure to be making Talizo sweat.

"Understood, my lady," she defers.

"And tell your neighbour he's to come and see me immediately," Mai adds. General Azang, whose estate is next to Talizo's, will be a useful person with whom to talk about bringing in a satisfactory number of perpetrators in a satisfactory time. Mai will ask for at least twenty—that's two for each of the simultaneous attacks.

She reflects on the news as Talizo exits. According to the Minister, there were several additional sites where explosives had been planted but the people responsible for setting them off had either been apprehended before they could do so, or simply failed in their task. As many as five separate locations had gone this way—a third of the total attacks planned. That, to Mai, speaks of rushed preparations—probably a fast-tracked timetable thrust upon an existing plan. The time since Ozai's execution is still best measured in hours; Mai assumes the proximity isn't a coincidence.

She stays up, since she's already been woken and there's only an hour or so until dawn. It's not that dawn is when she'd rise, given the choice, but Azula will be angry if she thinks Mai hasn't informed her of things in a timely fashion.

That said, the version of events Azula will be given won't be anything warranting actually rousing her from her beauty sleep. Mai reads through the palace's recent mail as she waits for the sun to rise and bring Azula out into the garden for her meditation. There's a very interesting letter from Ba Sing Se, fresh off the hawk's back. It's sealed quite thoroughly, but not with the Great Uniter's crest.

Luckily, a lifetime of spying on her own parents' activities (mostly out of boredom and a lack of other ways to rebel) has allowed Mai to collect quite a selection of mundane but useful skills and materials. She opens the letter carefully, reads it, and then reseals it with the right colour of wax, so that Azula shouldn't notice unless she has it examined in immense detail. Given the content of the letter, Mai doubts she'll be handing it to anyone to look at.

She's also seen the way Azula's eyes lose focus lately. She doesn't feel guilty, not really, though it is kind of a shame to see so sharp a blade go blunt.

She slides the vial out of her drawer and adds the last drops of metal to the tea she takes with her to the garden at dawn.

Mai arrives early, as just a hint of light begins to brighten the sky. Azula is not there yet, so she waits. She should have brought some work to keep her occupied; sitting here and idly watching the grass grow is the last thing she wants to waste her time doing.

She waits as the sky fills with flaming pink, marbled together with the brightening navy blue of the night. She waits until the sky is fully lit, rays of fresh sunshine creeping over more and more of the trees as the sun rises higher, expands its reach. Mai waits so long she practically falls asleep again before finally deciding Azula must not be coming. Either that or the dawn practice she's always talking about is a romanticisation of a routine that actually takes place mid-morning.

The tea is cold, now, but if Azula wants to drink it hot she can heat it up herself.

She goes to the Fire Lord's quarters, and the servant waiting outside the door informs her that Azula is still asleep. It may still be early in the day for Mai, but for Azula it's very late.

"It's not usual. Only the past few days," says the servant, like she's defending Azula's honour. Mai smirks at that thought, but the amusement turns bitter as her mind strays to other people, other honour.

Mai looks at the servant as kindly as she is wont to look at anybody. "I can understand wanting to sleep in," she says easily. "I do it myself on every other morning. Now, would you prefer to wake her up, or should I? There's important news of overnight events that the Fire Lord needs to be kept abreast of."

She's not surprised when the servant steps aside and lets Mai through the door to wake the sleeping lionturtle herself.

Mai rouses Azula by throwing her bathrobe at her sleeping form, then flinging whatever small items she can find lying around on top of that. It's a shoe that finally does it. Azula wakes up, grappling with an intruder that isn't there, instinctive flames at her palms.

"Mai?" Azula asks, blinking herself properly awake. "What's going on?"

"This is your mid-morning call to rise and shine," Mai drawls. "I came to bring you some overnight news."

Azula's gaze flickers to the window, brightly illuminated from the full sun that's beating down on the world today. Mai sees enough surprise there to know that Azula hasn't been sleeping in on purpose. Her exhaustion is a symptom.

"Anyway, I figured that if I had to be up before noon then so did you," Mai shrugs. "I also made you some tea, although it's gone cold."

"Bring it here," Azula extends a hand, expectant. Mai pours the tea from pot to cup. She places the cup in Azula's hand, and a firebending trick or two later the liquid is steaming.

"What news?" Azula asks, once she's downed the whole drink. She holds it out to Mai for a refill, which Mai provides, although she rolls her eyes at being treated like a servant. She has to act normally, after all, or Azula will regard her as suspicious. To treat tea service too much like fighting (that is to say, to do it willingly and without complaint) might raise questions about what the two actions could have in common, how they could be overlapping.

"A few spots of unrest across the country," Mai explains. "Attacks with explosives. Locations ranging from Fire Fountain City to Yu Dao."

"The colonies? How many casualties there?"

"As many as anywhere else. Certainly doesn't look like an attempt to mask responsibility, if that's what you're getting at." The groups operating out of Yu Dao typically don't bother hiding their responsibility anyway.

"Any arrests?"

"Eight so far," Mai nods. There's no need to mention that these are mostly the people responsible for the failed attacks.

"Good," says Azula. "Interrogate them. Then we'll make an example of them."

Azula seems calm about the whole business, which is just what Mai had hoped for. There will be more executions ahead, and if these attacks were a revolt against Azula's handling of Ozai then she will only be further destabilising herself by piling more people on the pyre.


	23. Chapter 23

Katara regains consciousness in an explosion of sound and sensation. Loud grating of rocks and metal. Splitting pain in her head and her arm. From her legs—well, if she didn't know better she'd think she didn't have any right now. She tries to breathe deeply, stay calm, but coughs as dust fills her lungs. At that movement, her chest feels full of barbs, so she breathes quickly and shallowly instead.

"Hey there, Sugar Queen," says a familiar voice. A voice Katara's barely heard lately.

"To—" even the single syllable is mostly lost to another painful cough.

"Yup," Toph answers anyway. "The one and only. Now just hold still for a sec and don't distract me with any of your yakking. I'm busy lifting this entire building off you."

Katara stays quiet, for once grateful for Toph's blunt manner and the lack of response she demands. Silence is much more comfortable right now.

There's dust in her eyes. Reflexive tears try to wash it out but don't leave her vision much clearer. Katara calls upon her arms; one of them aches even more sharply when she tries to move it, but the other manages to pull itself free from some light rubble and come shakily to meet her face. Of course, it's covered in dust too, so rubbing her eyes with it doesn't help. The idea of trying to use bending for such a delicate task is too exhausting.

She hears Toph grunt with exertion, and then there's another almighty crash as whatever huge quantity of earth she'd been lifting hits the ground in its new location. Closing her eyes and focusing on her hearing instead, Katara begins to pick up on other sounds in the maelstrom of noise. A young child wailing. People calling out names with panicked, grief-clogged voices. People calling for help, every syllable laboured like their chests too have been bruised or broken by crushing rocks, wood, metal.

A couple of voices nearby, that Toph's voice responds directly to:

_Thank you. Thank you._

_No worries, mister. Now go take that kid to the hospital._

_Yes, of course. Thank you._

"Alright, Sugar Queen," Toph addresses Katara again, sounding closer to her this time. "You still with me?"

"Yes," Katara manages to grate out. The words sound so weak, but thankfully Toph's hearing is sharp and well-focused.

"Good," she says. "Or maybe not so good, depending on how you wanna look at it. The bad news is, this next part's gonna hurt. You were lucky that a metal beam shielded your head from a lot of the falling roof chunks. Your legs are a more complicated story. The good news is that the greatest earthbender of all time's come to rescue you. I could do this with my eyes closed." Toph takes a moment to chuckle to herself.

Katara would once have scolded Toph for making jokes in a desperate situation like this. Now, she's just glad Toph is here. It feels almost like old times, when it was as simple as their group standing together against the world, and despite their arguments they could be certain that when push came to shove they'd defend each other with their lives.

For all that war tears apart, the absence of it has dismantled that tight unit of friends. With Sokka alternating between Kyoshi Island and the South Pole, Suki refocusing her warriors on domestic issues after their wartime foray into the international, Toph training her metalbending students and refusing to take sides in the conflict over the colonies, Zuko... being _Zuko_ , and Aang being gone altogether, what they used to have is so far out of reach that Katara has to sit down sometimes and remind herself of all the reasons why the war should not be thought of as 'the good times'.

Katara's reflections are interrupted by a sudden earthquake around her. The heavy rubble shifts and slides at Toph's instruction. Then Katara is being lifted up on a chunk of earth and set down slowly, slowly. She can hear the crunch of Toph's footsteps, but when she tries to open her eyes the grit only has her blinking furiously again.

"I can get rid of the dust in your eyes, you know, Sugar Queen," Toph says. "But you'd have to hold _really_ still."

Katara shakes her head weakly. "Water," she asks.

"I can get you some of that," Toph says, "but I think it'd be better if I finished chipping you out of there first. Can you hang on?"

Katara thinks yes and no at the same time. She can't move, she can only just breathe, and all she's getting from her legs right now is the occasional jolt of pain as Toph bends apart the rocks that are crushing them. She knows she should welcome at least that much sensation, but it's never really easy to welcome pain. It'd be nice, really nice, to just have her eyes back, maybe something to moisten her dusty mouth. Water would be such a comfort.

"You've always been tough as nails, Sugar Queen," Toph talks as she works. "Don't go telling everybody I said this, but I've always admired you for that."

Katara listens to her friend's voice working through this crisis, and it's almost like she's been carried back into an old memory. That shouldn't relax her as much as it does, but her heart rate slows somewhat, her breathing eases, her eyelids become heavier, less desperate to open. She's drifting off, and is halfway out onto a darkened sea before it occurs to her that with a headache like this—the kind that could well speak of a head injury—it might not be the greatest idea to go to sleep.

 

 

When Katara next awakens she's not in Yu Dao's town square anymore. There's a roof over her head—quite a high roof, and one that's fully intact. Beneath her is a thin layer of something soft, spread over hard ground that digs into her spine. She's become too accustomed to the overly luxurious beds of royalty, evidently, because this can't be anything harder than what she used to sleep on regularly.

The grit from her eyes has been removed, so while they still feel scratchy, she can see again. What she sees is a person leaning over her, brown hair falling in a curtain that obscures their face. There's light glinting off the hair, apparently from a source on the ground. Katara channels her awareness to her legs, forcing them to talk to her brain again. Sure enough, the familiar feeling of waterbending healing is there at her knee. The source of the light.

"Who?" It's meant to be a full question, but Katara's throat is still dry and her lungs are still achy. Speech is not as impossible as it had been, but it's still more comfortable to save her words.

"This is Tonna, my personal healer," says a voice that doesn't belong to the waterbender.

"Su."

"She was a prisoner of war, and when I found her mopping up sludge from the floor of a tavern just outside Gaoling, I asked her whether she'd consider putting her talents to better use," Su goes on proudly, absorbed in the task of recounting her own résumé.

"Good, you're awake," Toph's voice interrupts, the tone so much more no-nonsense than Su's.

"Why's she here?" Katara manages to ask. Her right hand, the one that doesn't ache so much, agrees to being lifted and pointing towards Su.

"Believe it or not, Katara, I'm here because I don't want to see you hurt." Su manages to sound like Katara has treated her unfairly by asking her question.

"Yeah, that's my reasoning too," Toph sighs. "I may be the greatest earthbender—and metalbender—you'll find anywhere, but those things don't so much come in handy when someone needs healing. And I don't want you dead. Neither does Su. I can't tell you what she wants you alive for, but I _can_ tell you she isn't lying."

Su's glare fires up again. She doesn't aim it at Toph specifically—not that it would do any good.

Toph obviously gets the picture anyway. "Always so easy to rile up," she snorts.

It's kind of a strange dynamic they have, Suyin and Toph; one being so much older, but the other being the teacher.

Katara's legs are coming back under her control quite steadily now. If she could just get something to lean on, to help her walk, she could probably be up and about again soon. There's so much to do that she'll have to be.

"Look after," she rasps, "the others. I'll be fine."

"I'm afraid we need you to be better than just fine right now, Katara," Su argues. "Let Tonna heal you as much as possible, and then we'll have two healers on hand, even if one is rather on the tired side and the other only just out of the woods. Help the others by first helping yourself."

"She's right," Toph adds, simple but emphatic, crossing her arms like she's ready to make Katara comply if she tries to resist.

Tonna moves up to soothe Katara's throat, and she can't deny that it's a relief to breathe and speak without feeling like she could wear the last thin layer of skin away with any given vibration of her vocal cords, and be left coughing herself bloody.

Bizarrely, Katara's mind wanders to Ty Lee again. She hopes the Kyoshi Warrior is safer in the Capital than Katara has been here. She imagines the way Ty Lee would hold her hand if she were here, warm (though not firebender-warm) and tight and deceptively strong. Katara misses her in a way that's similar to how she misses her brother and her old friends, and also in a way that... isn't. Even being away from her this long seems to have consolidated Katara's feelings a bit. They're not clear-cut falling-in-love feelings from tales like that of Oma and Shu, and their lovers' cave. But they could still be... something. Something important, even. Katara can't help but wonder whether kissing Ty Lee again would help clarify things further. She might want to try it, just to see.

A man Katara doesn't recognise enters the room briefly, makes some kind of hand gesture and then ducks back outside.

Suyin clasps her hands in front of her purposefully and says, "I'll be back later. We've detained one of the bombers. I'm going to go and have a chat with her."

 

ϟ

 

"Zuko," Uncle Iroh says gravely, as Zuko wipes blood off Aang's hand. The shards of china and glass he pulled out of the broken skin are lying, still stained with red, on an empty shelf in the Jasmine Dragon's storeroom. Zuko leans into one of the hollows of a larger shelf in order to make room for himself beside Aang. Uncle's back is pressed up against the door that leads through to the shop, because there isn't room for him to come any further in.

Uncle looks in dismay at the spilt tea leaves scattered across the floor, so mixed up with more pieces of broken crockery that there'll be absolutely no hope of sweeping them up and salvaging them.

"I know, Uncle, he can't stay in here all day," Zuko tries not to let his frustration translate into clumsy, rough touches where Aang is cut. It isn't the first accident he's had, losing touch with where he is and with the small tasks Zuko's given him to help in the shop behind the scenes because he wants to keep occupied. He's been more stable, and the everydayness of their life here in Ba Sing Se has been helping, Zuko thinks. But he still flickers in and out of his own personality at least once every few days. Some times it takes longer to pin him back down than others.  

"That is not what I was going to say, my nephew," Uncle sighs. It's been exactly what he's said before, so Zuko is surprised that Iroh has decided to change his tune now.

"What _were_ you going to say, then?"

"I was going to say that not only can he not stay here all day, but neither can you. Zuko, you are right in believing that the world needs its Avatar, but it needs its Fire Lord quite desperately too. I am beginning to think that this mission of yours is not so selfless."  

Aang remains silent. Zuko finishes cleaning his wounds and starts on wrapping his hands with clean strips of cloth. He takes his time. He likes the feeling of having Aang here—tangible, warm and alive, and present at least most of the time.

Perhaps Uncle is right. Perhaps this is about selfishness. He looks at Aang's downcast face, and, sensing Zuko's eyes, the Avatar looks up. He looks up and he smiles that smile, boyish and wise, at once a teenager and a century old. Zuko has been selfish in plenty of ways throughout his life, but none of them even began to make him as happy as this one does.

"Maybe Aang is ready to travel back to the Fire Nation with me," Zuko suggests, not wanting anything else to be true.

"Yeah," Aang agrees very speedily. "I'm ready." His own injured hands seem to catch his eye at this point, and, ridiculously, he hides the one that Zuko has already finished bandaging behind his back. Zuko rests his forehead on his own hand.

Uncle looks between them silently, his expression not giving much away. As he deliberates, Zuko wonders what he will do if Iroh disagrees. Could he leave anyway, contradicting Iroh's advice despite knowing that his uncle has proven himself to be the wisest of men? Aang's other hand is still resting in his, just idly letting itself be held. The small area of skin-to-skin contact answers the question much more loudly than Zuko's brain does.

"I suppose that would be best for the both of you," Uncle nods at last, and Zuko breathes a sigh of relief. "Just remember that you also have to save the world—not just each other."

"Obviously," Zuko snips.

"Of course," Aang echoes more solemnly. His hand shifts, turning over so that his fingers can wrap around Zuko's. Holding his hand. Zuko wonders what it means. He needs someone to tell him what it means, but he can't ask. Whatever this is feels liable to shatter into as many pieces as the broken tea sets on the floor if he tries to open it up for anyone else to examine.

"We can set out tomorrow," Zuko says.

Uncle laughs his jolly laugh. "You are getting ahead of yourself, my nephew," he says affectionately. "You gave away your balloon, remember? I'm sure I have saved more than enough for a pair of ostrich horses, but you may need to shop around to find ones sturdy enough for your journey."

Zuko knows how his uncle scrimps and saves all the profits from the Jasmine Dragon, carefully investing them in upgrades to the building, to their home, the latest tea varieties, new tea sets—and he'll be needing money for that purpose, after Aang's episode today.

"I couldn't—" he begins to protest.

"Zuko, don't be ridiculous. What would I want to use my money for if not for helping protect you, our nation, and the world?"

Zuko reddens, because obviously he should have realised that.

Even with ostrich horses, though, they'll have to find a way to cross water soon enough. They could take the Serpent's Pass and rely on Aang's bending skills, but using waterbending alone to cross the actual ocean between the Earth and Fire nations would be a mad gamble even if Aang wasn't at risk of slipping out of focus in the middle of the journey.

For a second he wishes he hadn't given away the balloon to those refugees. He abruptly feels guilty; those people had been starving, and they had needed all the chances at seeking help they could get. Even if the funny, cheerful earthbender guy and his firebending brother apparently haven't been back with any help for the oth—

"Sato!" the answer erupts suddenly from his mouth, because _of course_. "Uncle, do you think we can make it to the southwest entrance by tomorrow morning?"

Uncle frowns, glancing out the window at the fading evening light. "No trains leave the upper ring for the outskirts after sunset. You have not packed or bought tickets. I think it is too late—but why do you need to go there in particular?"

Zuko slumps in defeat, brilliant plan already foiled. "Because—I had _hoped_ —we could have hitched a ride on a fancy new Sato airship if we were there when it passed through. I spoke to the owner in the shop today."

"That pretty girl with the shiny, wavy hair?"

"Yes, her."

"Such a shame, I'm sure it would have been a really beautiful airship."

"Uncle, that's not the point. This was our best option and now we're back to square one, with expensive ostrich horses and too-risky waterbending!"

"Where's this Sato airship right now?" Aang interrupts. "Maybe we can get aboard before it takes off?"

"It'll be outside the palace for the night."

"But Zuko, we're so close to the palace right now, we could walk there in hardly any time!"

"You're forgetting whose palace it is," Zuko huffs. He _may_ have omitted certain details of his situation with Kuvira from the account he gave Aang. Specifically the intended marriage part. But the rest Aang is aware of. Kuvira will certainly recognise Zuko if she sees him sneaking around her grounds. Then the whole world will find out that June didn't manage to assassinate him, and he'll be a target again before he can even exploit the element of surprise that being believed dead has given him.

"You're forgetting who we are," Aang points out.

The words strike Zuko unexpectedly hard. Forgetting who he is? No, he will never do that. He'd promised Mother that he wouldn't, promised Uncle, promised himself.

"You're right," he says, squaring his shoulders. "We're the Avatar and the Fire Lord. If anyone can sneak onto the palace grounds, it's us."


	24. Chapter 24

Azula needs to go to Ba Sing Se. She needs to go there because of the letters she's been exchanging with the leader of the Dai Li. Her upcoming journey is not motivated by anything else, although there are coincidental perks, like getting to see Kuvira again.

Of course, the price of travel to the far-flung Earth Empire is the same one Zuzu paid by going on his quest for the Avatar; someone needs to sit on the throne in the meantime. She will handle things better than her brother, though. Unlike him, she knows what is actually required in situations such as these. Azula would prefer not to let the people know she is gone at all. Her public appearances have been scattered enough that people should believe she is simply attending to her duties out of the public eye for up to a couple of weeks. And her duties _will_ all be attended to—Mai has already been making herself useful in that regard. Only when Azula returns victorious will her absence from the Fire Nation be noted, and by then it won't matter.

Besides, her leave won't be anywhere near as permanent as Zuzu's. 

The unfortunate business with the explosions that Mai woke her up to discuss means that the people will require at least something from their Fire Lord in response, so Azula has herself appropriately dressed and goes through the motions, declaring that justice will be served against those responsible.

"That was inspiring," Mai tells her as she returns inside, her voice as flat as ever.

"I'm leaving the city," Azula says in return.

"Well _that's_ interesting," Mai says, more genuinely. "Where on earth are you going? Where could you possibly want to be more than where you already are, _almighty Fire Lord_?"

"Do not mock me," Azula reminds Mai of her place with a sharp glare, which Mai takes as apathetically as she takes all instruction. "I will be travelling to Ba Sing Se, to finally complete a conquest that I began some time ago."

The good thing about having Mai as her assistant is that she doesn't respond to news with irritating hysterics. Mai takes things quietly in stride—unlike Ty Lee who used to provide flattery and congratulation as naturally as she exhaled each breath. Azula never minded terribly, but she does not and has never _needed_ compliments to be conscious of her own importance.

"And while you're away?" Mai prompts.

 _Trust is for fools_.

Azula can't tell whether this voice belongs to Ozai, or to Mother, or to Kuvira, or to Ty Lee. It seems like a blend of the four, and something else. Perhaps this voice is simply her own.

And Azula believes it; trust has proven itself untrustworthy before, with disastrous consequences. This is not trust, though. Mai has no power to _take_ the throne from Azula, no other royal family member left to install in her place, no Zuko to become Fire Lady to. There are no moves she can make that will give her a better position than the one Azula has already bestowed upon her. There is no one to love more than she fears Azula this time—and, with the smoke of Ozai's execution still acrid in everyone's nostrils, there is certainly fear.

"Only you will even be aware that I am away," Azula tells Mai.

"I see," she replies with a nod.

"Order an airship. Tell them it's Ty Lee who will be travelling."

This surprises Mai enough that it is visible; the narrowing of her thin eyebrows, the pursing of her pale lips. "Are you actually taking Ty Lee with you?"

"Yes. I have a use for her," Azula says.

Her new connection with the Dai Li will provide her with access to certain specialised techniques. She knows this from various accounts—the traitor Sego's story about his sister included. Azula would like a demonstration of these techniques, would like to see them wipe a particularly troubling slate clean.

Azula feels excitement, like a vibration along her spine, in her fingers. It mixes with the persistent nausea in her gut and the ache thudding at her temples. Purpose overcomes sickness, so she fills herself with that.

"We leave this afternoon," she adds, and then sends Mai away to follow her instructions.  

 

ϟ

 

Asami is changing out of the greasy coveralls she'd worn for some quick airship maintenance and into some comfortable travelling clothes when she hears the commotion outside. Her hands twitch, wanting her swords in their grip. She grabs her undershirt and throws it on, forgoing the jacket she would ordinary pair it with. It's warm in the Fire Nation anyway, and she doesn't need to look presentable if she's under attack—not this kind of attack, at least. Looking impeccable is a different kind of warfare. Her pants take a few seconds longer to get on properly, with their tight legs, but then she's pulling her swords down off the wall, barging out into the main area of the airship and making for the door.

Two men are facing off against a swarm of royal guards. One appears to be a powerful earthbender, while the other wields dual swords much like Asami's. Their robes are flapping as they leap, twirl, kick out at anyone who attempts to subdue them, and in one flutter of fabric Asami sees an unmistakeable hint of blue on one of their foreheads.

The other's hood is blown back, and Asami sees that the swordsman is _Zuko_. He's good with the sleek weapons, although she thinks she could still take him in a non-bending fight. She has, after all, trained _exclusively_ in non-bending techniques her whole life, while the Fire Lord has had to prioritise his flames.

He isn't using them now, though. Perhaps he thinks his scar isn't enough to give away his identity. She should have told him that she knew who he was when they'd met at the Jasmine Dragon, disillusioned him. She can scarcely believe that he could have wandered in his exile for years and never been recognised—but even if he had, his public profile is higher than ever now.

Asami stands just-concealed behind the door of the airship in her undershirt watching the guards fight the intruders, and realises that she has no idea what she ought to do. She wants to help Zuko and the Avatar, but being seen opposing Kuvira's people will put her father, herself, their company and their long-term plans in jeopardy.

Asami turns around, races back to her quarters and stows her swords there. She pulls on her blazer, picks a barrette for her hair, and even smears some light colour on her lips.

She goes out through the door this time, making herself known to the fighters.

"What's going on?" she wails.

"Get back inside, Miss Sato," one of the guards tells her gruffly. "As a guest of the Great Uniter, you're under our protection. Get back into your ship and we'll take care of this, don't you worry."

Asami stands, still as though in shock, and watches. Waits for her father to come out of his final meeting with Kuvira. They need to get out of here—but the exit has to be a clean one if they're going to pick up those refugees on their way.

Zuko and his friend seem almost to have gained the upper hand when the doors of the palace swing open. There's a sudden rumbling of earth as the flat ground beneath the fighters curls up at the edges. From every side, shadowy figures in conical hats approach. It's strange, since the sun is quite high and the shadows are short and few in this open space. They seem to carry the darkness with them.

"Lay down your arms," Kuvira booms, striding quickly down the palace steps. Asami sees her father hurrying along behind her. His path takes him to the side, towards Asami, while Kuvira cuts a course straight towards the fight. "As you can see, my Dai Li agents have you surrounded."

Zuko doesn't drop his swords.

Kuvira flicks a hand, and they crumple in on themselves until they're misshapen and useless. Asami is briefly saddened; they had clearly been well-made instruments, perfectly weighted.

"I do not reiterate my requests," says Kuvira, as Zuko drops the hunks of metal. They clatter against the stones at his feet. Instinctively, Asami wants to tell him he should kick them away in case Kuvira turns the metal back on him—but then this whole place is made of earth and metal. Even her ship (though its essentials are made from platinum) is a plaything to Kuvira.

Kuvira stops and eyes Zuko closely, and Asami sees the recognition on her face even before she addresses him,

"Zuko. I must say I'm surprised to see you here. Or anywhere."

"I'm surprised to see _you_ here. Finished bullying the Fire Nation into ridiculous marriage alliances?"

Kuvira's mouth twitches. "Now, now," she says, relishing in each word, "I'm not sure my wife would appreciate your attitude towards our union. Such harsh words—and from my own brother in law."

"You really expect me to believe _Azula_ would _marry_ you?"

Asami expects flames to roar out of Zuko's mouth at any moment, but that response is interrupted by a strange seizing in his companion. Avatar Aang hunches suddenly as though he's been struck in the gut. His body folds up again even more abruptly, wrenched ramrod straight until he looks somehow... unnaturally tall, even though his height hasn't actually changed. He looks around at the shadowy agents surrounding him with light in his eyes, and Asami sees a flicker of fear dawn on a few of their faces before the stony masks slip back into place.

The voice in which Aang speaks is obviously not his own. It rivals Kuvira's in its depth and breadth, and seems to layer over itself until it sounds like a dozen versions of the same middle-aged woman are speaking at once. It's no secret now that the Avatar is present, and Kuvira and the Dai Li ready their postures for an attack.

"The Dai Li?" the Avatar says, barely biting back disgust. "The Dai Li I trained to protect the cultural history and rightful ruler of the Earth Kingdom? What has become of you, bending to the will of a dictator?"

"All they were protecting was the ignorance of a sorely inadequate monarch. I tasked them with a more productive mission. I _saved_ my people from the dictator that had threatened and oppressed them for a hundred years—"

"Be quiet," the Avatar commands, and Kuvira halts her argument in surprise.

Asami thinks back to the lessons she took in history—never her favourite subject—and determines that the woman speaking must be Avatar Kyoshi. She's been described as a particularly intimidating incarnation of the Avatar spirit, but it's fast becoming apparent that that description doesn't go nearly far enough.

Kyoshi brings a foot heavily to the ground in front of her and the earth—all of the earth, as far as Asami can see—quakes. Asami holds on to the side of the airship, as does her father.

"We need to leave," he tells her. "Get the craft ready for takeoff, Asami. Now."

Kuvira regains herself, narrows her eyes and sends a rain of sharp metal towards the Avatar. Kyoshi responds with forceful airbending and acrobatics, redirecting and dodging the blades, rather than bending them. A second wave comes, which she catches in a block of stone.

"Interesting," Kuvira remarks. "Even the fabled Avatar Kyoshi is helpless against metal."

In response, Kyoshi raises her arms above her head and conjures magma from the earth. Dai Li agents and palace guards scramble out of the way as a molten gorge splits the ground in half. Cracks form in an arc around Kuvira's feet, isolating her. Another strong arm movement from the Avatar and Kuvira's little island begins to sink, heat creeping in from the edges and turning the grey stone a fiendish orange.

"Kyoshi, no!" Zuko shouts. "You can't kill her. Remember what we talked about?"

He doesn't sound very certain that she will remember, but the yawning of the earth stops before it can swallow the Great Uniter and boil her in the liquefied fury of her own element.

The white light of the Avatar's eyes dims, flashes like a guttering flame. Kyoshi's voice washes in and out as a young man's, only just broken, vies for its place. They mingle in an unsettling blur of softness and unforgiving strength.

Avatar Aang pushes out a hand to airbend, but the result is a mere breeze mixed in with a weak, pale fire blast.

Kuvira says aloud what's surely been on the minds of all the onlookers: "Looks like the Avatar's not all here." She directs the Dai Li with a quick hand gesture, and they close in on Zuko and Aang once again. "I have to thank you, Zuko, for doing the impossible and finding him for me. I've found your little holiday advantageous in more ways than one."

Fists of rock are launched through the air, attaching themselves to arms and legs, knocking their targets off balance. Zuko struggles as he's pulled down onto his knees. Aang, too, falls. Words Asami can't pick up pass from Zuko's mouth and into Aang's ear, and the Avatar nods—and then Asami's father is dragging her away into the airship.

"Takeoff, I said!" he shouts, more anxious than angry.

The ship rocks as though the stone slab beneath it were an ocean. Then they're rising off the ground, looking down on just one metal-cuffed prisoner being led away.


	25. Chapter 25

"Wonderful news! Oh, I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

Katara stirs on the hospital bed she claimed for a nap.

"You did," she answers Suyin sharply, "but you might as well get on with whatever you came here to say, now."

"I do apologise," Su says, as unapologetically as possible. "I'd like to get some sleep myself, you understand, but I've been busy interrogating our bomber."

Katara coughs. Her throat is too sore for the forceful words trying to hammer their way out of her.

"I've healed almost fifty injuries today, even after a building fell on me. And I'll be healing more as soon as I refresh my own strength. I'm sorry if your _talking_ has tired you out. You could stand to do less of it, you know."

Su has the audacity to look offended. She presses a hand to the breast of her green tunic, which is only marred by a few streaks of dust. Katara adjusts her own dress, the hem of which crunches with dried blood and caked mud. She ties her ruined hair back out of her face as Su twists a finger in the perfect curl bouncing by her cheek.

"Well," Su narrows her eyes, "you're _clearly_ not at your best right now. But I thought you'd like to know what I've found out, regardless."

Su has been standing in the doorway—the whole room is smaller than a closet in the kind of house she must live in back at Gaoling, coming from money as she does. Katara notes the deliberate way that she locks the door after she steps inside.

"The people behind the blast are calling themselves the 'New Ozai Society'—believers in that tyrant Ozai's supposed right to rule over the Fire Nation. They wanted Zuko brought down, and were almost ready to be happy with Azula, before she separated herself from Ozai so... strikingly. The girl we arrested didn't personally have much in-depth knowledge of the organisation, but she claimed her father was a significant player in it. Apparently there are sympathetic officials high up in the Fire Nation's nobility."

"So the bombing was a reaction to Ozai's death?"

"Bombings, plural—she said there were as many as fifteen separate locations attacked. They were planning them during Zuko's rule and aborted those plans when Azula took power. But yes, an order went out overnight to resume the operations with haste in light of Ozai's execution."

"So who do they want to install as Fire Lord now that Ozai is gone and his brother, his son and his daughter have all rejected him?" Katara asks. She thinks of the officials who were most loyal to Ozai—people like Zhao, cold-blooded cowards like Yon Rha—and shudders at the thought of one of them taking the throne.

"That's hardly important," Su waves the question away. "There are no obvious candidates left who'd _actually_ be capable of running the country, so we're not under any immediate threat in that respect. What _is_ important is what this means for our movement here in Yu Dao."

Katara frowns. The crinkling of her forehead pulls painfully at scabbed skin up at her hairline.

"What _does_ it mean for Yu Dao?" she asks. When Su hesitates before answering, Katara adds, cautiously, "What did you do to the bomber to make her talk?"

"I didn't so much _do_ anything to her as... come to an agreement," says Su. "These attacks were a display of strength—and this group might not have a clear goal, but they _do_ have resources. Resources that they're willing to mobilise against a Fire Nation led by someone they don't support. Their enemy is the same as—"

"If your next words are _the enemy of my enemy is my friend_ , Suyin, then I _swear_ —"

"Their enemy is Azula, and she has joined herself to Kuvira, who is our enemy. Why shouldn't we join forces with our foes' other foes to bring them both what they deserve?"

"You can't seriously be considering working with those people!" Katara exclaims. "No fans of Ozai would ever allow the colonies to be returned to the Earth Kingdom."

"I'm not talking about compromising with them on _that_ issue. But we need to neutralise Kuvira and Azula's partnership before things spiral out of control."

It isn't that Katara disagrees with this last statement, just that she doesn't like the way Suyin speaks about assassinating world leaders—young women like Katara herself—like it's all just another day's work. Katara will agree that no number of second chances seem likely to change Azula, in whom Katara has never seen a single flicker of goodness—but Kuvira was... well, she wasn't a friend, but she was once an ally. When she first set out to stabilise the Earth Kingdom and rally it against the Fire Nation, she set out with intentions and a drive that Katara could admire. She knows Suyin used to see something in Kuvira too. She has forgotten that too easily for Katara's liking.

Su's face remains stony. "Kuvira betrayed my family. She's responsible for the death of my son," she says. "Not to mention all the havoc she's wrought right around the nation. Mark my words: I'd be happy to see her head on a spike, right along with her murderous wife's."

"You can't—"

"I can and I will. This is war. The only way to end it is by cutting both heads off the two-headed rat viper."

"Aang ended the Hundred Year War without killing Fire Lord Ozai," Katara shoots back, both indignant and desperate.

Su scoffs. "And look where we are now! Ozai has just been made into fuel for this fire, this continuation of the war that you claim Avatar Aang ended. If he had just destroyed Ozai when he had the chance then you probably wouldn't be juggling all the troubles you're facing today." Su's glare loses some of its tension, morphing into something patronisingly faux-sympathetic. "I'm honestly quite surprised you're defending him, Katara, after what he did to you."

Katara is too tired for this. "I'm not defending Aang personally," she says, exasperated. "I'm defending what's right, and regardless of the state of my _private_ relationship with him, I have every confidence that he would do the same."

Su's sigh wouldn't be out of place on a stage with the Ember Island Players.

"Except that he's not, Katara. I'm sorry, but I'll believe that the Avatar wants me to change my approach when he approaches me and tells me so."

Suyin leaves before Katara can argue any further. She resists the urge to fling out ropes of water and haul the woman back into the tiny hospital room, to freeze her to a wall until she sees reason, until Katara can find the words to properly explain just how badly Su is misunderstanding things.

Instead, she runs a hand through her hair in frustration, tugging mercilessly at the knotty parts until the ripping pain in her scalp distracts her. She thinks of what Ty Lee would say, and wonders whether her soft hands would soothe her better than these hard tugs. Probably, she figures, but keeps tugging regardless since the alternative is beyond reach. 

She's about to settle back down and finish her nap when a new face appears in her doorway.

"Katara! There you are!" This time it's Korra, whose face, though bloodied all down one side and as dusty as Katara's own, is host to a bright grin. "Thank the spirits you're okay! I was really worried. I figured you'd be here, though, helping heal people. I want to help—but as you know I haven't mastered some of the tricky internal bits of the healing thing, so I need you to help me with that—oh, were you about to go to sleep? I can wait, if you need—"

Katara rolls off the bed. She holds on to it and waits several moments for the splinters of pain that shoot through her legs to subside.

"It's fine," she tells Korra through gritted teeth. "I don't think I can sleep now anyway. We've got so much to do. Come with me."

 

ϟ

 

Ty Lee sits in the seat across from Azula in the airship, plates of the finest food set out before them both. Her chopsticks slide in her sweaty grip.

"It will almost be a shame to snatch Ba Sing Se from her grasp," Azula is saying. "I wonder whether we will remain married after it's done. Will she be as attractive when she doesn't have her the power of her empire behind her? Hm, I suppose not..."

Ty Lee doesn't answer, doesn't nod or simper or agree the way she would once have done. The old Ty Lee would have been thrilled to be sitting here with Azula, one on one, hearing these strangely intimate confessions spill out of her. The Ty Lee of today feels trapped in this airship, this huge metal cage too high in the air to leap out of. The Ty Lee of today knows better than to think there are no consequences to hearing Azula confess her feelings.

"Just between you and me, Ty Lee," Azula pauses to chew a piece of meat, clean and efficient, as she is in all things. "Just between us, I think I'd be quite disappointed to break the marriage off. There are certain perks I've found myself enjoying. She kisses much more satisfyingly than you ever did, for instance. She is more demanding, which makes it even better when she yields to me in the end."

Ty Lee takes a mouthful of her food. It's very flavoursome, but tastes too much like a last meal.

"Sometimes I even decide to yield to her," Azula adds casually, watching with amusement as Ty Lee almost chokes.

"Why are you telling me this?" she asks, once the coughing fit passes.

"I'm free to speak about whatever I please, with whomever I choose," Azula replies.

But this has never been Azula's way before. People who hear her secrets don't get chances to tell them.

Their plates are collected and the next course is served. The food is a work of art, but Ty Lee has no appetite left for it. She closes her eyes and pictures Kyoshi Island—Suki's strident voice ordering the girls through new routines, strict and uncompromising but always so encouraging underneath; Sokka's adorable squawks of surprise or indignation; the feeling of sun-heated sand shifting between her fingers and toes as she cartwheels her way down to the waves; the warmth of her fellow warriors' bodies packed against her sides as they watch the radiant sunsets from the beach even in the coldest weather. She imagines the marvel that would cross Katara's face if Ty Lee could show her all those colours blending together perfectly, like the rainbow aura of the world itself, shimmering off the water brightly enough to blind, but still not enough to deter admiring eyes.

"How can you be sure the Dai Li are loyal to you, anyway?" Ty Lee asks, because there's no point in holding her tongue if she's already been sentenced for the capital crime of listening. "They wouldn't shift their loyalties to you before. They liked Kuvira better."

"Circumstances are different now," Azula responds vaguely. The light coming through the window shifts slightly, and Ty Lee sees the dark circles around her eyes in sharper relief than ever. Something is not right with her. Ty Lee knows Azula, knows when she isn't okay. Ty Lee reminds herself not to let Azula's suffering pick out the stitches that have only just managed to close up her bleeding heart. She reminds herself that what Azula has in store for her once they land cannot be good, reminds herself that an off-balance Azula means a better chance of escaping that fate. That Azula's downfall isn't the same thing as her own anymore.

But old habits die hard, rearing their heads even in their death throes, and Ty Lee has never been very good at feeling the right thing at the right time. Danger and love have always mixed in together in ways they shouldn't have; spite and sympathy; injury and pleasure.

"You know, Azula," she says, losing her battle against the urge to comfort, "even if they're not loyal to you specifically, you and Kuvira could still rule them together."

 

ϟ

 

Asami's father isn't exactly thrilled about picking up the refugees, but she knows he's just tense because of the scene they left behind at the palace. Few people are more passionate about curbing the creeping influence of the Earth Empire before it turns into something like the Fire Nation of the past hundred years. Only once the war ended did Hiroshi feel able to properly reclaim his Earth descent, and teach Asami to embrace that part of her heritage. While the Fire Nation had the world in its chokehold Asami had been as Fire Nation as her mother's birth allowed her to be, and her father had acquired forged documents proclaiming him a Fire Nation citizen too.

Asami watches him steering the airship for a while, eyes flickering to the plans for the huge deal Future Industries has just signed with the Earth Empire military. The company has really only been a startup until now, but Kuvira has ordered so many airships, weapons and experimental armoured mechasuits that they'll need to expand their facilities and their staff exponentially to handle it all. The funding she's offered is enough to set them up for life. Probably enough to make anyone else question how much it's really worth risking for sabotage, for a political protest.  

Asami leaves Hiroshi and goes to distribute another round of food supplies amongst the starving refugees. There are some people here who don't look happy about having to accept help from her, but she doesn't really blame them. They've been through a lot. Several more of them are clearly struggling with the mode of transport—airsickness is nasty, Asami knows. She soothes them, offers them ginger tea. The firebenders in their number are happy enough to heat up drinks and meals once they've replenished their energy with some canned food. As the flight goes on, the quiet, sullen crowd grows livelier, and it brings a small smile to Asami's face when she hears laughter, even a bawdy song or two. She knows some of the lyrics, but doesn't join in. She is not her soldier self right now.

She smells smoke in the air and leaves the refugee crowd to investigate, stepping out of the main hold silently so as not to cause these already harrowed people any further panic. None of them appear to have noticed; unlike them, Asami knows what to watch for, and is always vigilant. She didn't see any firebenders leaving, but it's possible someone slipped away.

She follows the scent towards her quarters in the back. The closer she gets, the more she begins to smell something that reminds her of welding metal in with the smoky scent. She keeps her footsteps featherlight—easily done in her fine leather shoes, though she could do it in heavy Fire Nation army boots too. She is taut with alertness, clenched like a fist. Her dual swords are inside her room, but she still has a few knives, weapons she doesn't go anywhere without. She pulls her favourite throwing knife from her right boot and opens the door to her quarters in one fast push.

She looks around and can see things out of the order in which she left them, but doesn't lay eyes on the intruder. There's a whistling, whirring noise that Asami's engineering brain starts at. Air rushes around like the small room has brewed its own breeze. She wonders whether she should look for the intruder or the leak first.

She glances up to where the vents most likely to be the leak's source are located, and sees a figure spread against the ceiling like a spider-frog.

"Sorry about your floor," Avatar Aang says sheepishly, and he drops gently down to the floor, carried leisurely by the air like paper, dust or a leaf.

Asami looks at the section of flooring in question; underneath her bed is a makeshift manhole, crudely cut open and even more crudely sealed again, doubtless with firebending.

"I can't metalbend," Aang confesses, "and neither could any of the other avatars. Not even Kyoshi—even though I'm pretty sure she's trying to learn it, now. Which is tricky because she's kind of been dead for a long time and has to take over my body to practice—"

Asami can see what he's done, even if his explanation is wandering. She can fix it. What she can't fix is the fact that Zuko is now Kuvira's prisoner, and the unstable Avatar is aboard her ship without his ...friend, to keep him steady.

"No one can know you're here, okay, Avatar Aang?" she whispers.

"You can just call me Aang," he grins.

She wonders whether there's any way they'll be able to make it less obvious that it was the Future Industries airship that took the Avatar right out from under Kuvira. Korra would probably know what to do—at least, she'd come up with some mad plan and make it work despite its madness, through sheer force of will. Aang seems like someone who might appreciate Korra's style.

"Okay, Aang," says Asami. "You can stay in here for the flight, or I can find you a bigger space in the cargo hold. When we get back to Yu Dao, I'm going to take you to meet a friend of mine."

Aang watches her intently as she speaks. "You're smiling," he points out, with not a single hint of suspicion. "And it's obviously not because of me. Your friend must be a really good one."

Asami, conscious now of the pulling in her cheeks, lets the smile flow out uninhibited. Aang's own smile is wide in response. She had always heard that he was liberal with his grins, and seeing that reputation in action nearly makes her forget about all the worry that hangs over him. It calms her a little, too.

"She is. Korra's... amazing," she tells him, and allows herself to be distracted by talk of friends, the spirit world, and all the creatures around the world that she and Aang have seen, would like to see—or, in Aang's case, take rides on.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honesty hour: if I had time to not only write but rewrite fanfic, the first part of this chapter would be the first thing on the chopping block. It's my hope, however, that the other >half compensates.

 

Bolin regrets coming to the North Pole for help. He's seen Ahnah a few times, and he knows she regrets it too. He knows this because the joint chiefs, Eska and Desna, apparently enjoy having intense, mostly-silent dinners with their prisoners. Bolin can't pretend to understand it.

He's become familiar with the few other faces he sees around the place, as well as a few names. Tola, the healer who'd ensured he didn't die of hypothermia when he arrived here; Hirram, Rinro and Risha, the guards who've been most willing to chat with him as they escort him around the crazy ice palace, or hover by his doorway.

Bolin supposes he shouldn't be so harsh. He's not living in a cell, right now, and he can definitely imagine Eska and Desna keeping people in cells. They seem like the kind of people who'd enjoy it, in Bolin's humble opinion. He's been given an actual room, with an actual bed in it. Sure it's a bit chilly, and sure the drapey, indigo clothes he's been given to wear aren't his style, and sure he doesn't really get any time to himself at all because there are guards... 'escorts' hovering around him, watching—but he still gets to see Mako. He still gets to wander around a small designated area. He gets to go outside sometimes, even if going out mostly just makes him want to come back in out of the bracing wind.

The problem with it all is the Chiefs don't seem to care about the whole conflict between the Earth Empire and the Fire Nation.

"Do you _want_ the world to end in a mass of fire and earth and metal?" he asked them once, earlier in his stay, frustrated at their unresponsiveness.

Eska had turned her gaze on him slowly, like the movement of a glacier. "Perhaps," she'd said. "Then we could rise up and claim the barren lands for ourselves."

Desna had made a strange honking noise at the comment, which Bolin interpreted as a laugh, so he's fairly sure Eska was joking. Fairly sure is kind of not quite sure enough for certain things, though, and the fate of the entire world is one of those things.

The guards outside Bolin's room tonight are Hirram and Risha. They hold spears, which is a little bit intimidating, but Bolin's come to know both of them quite well. He's reasonably sure the girl, Risha, is into him. He thinks she's pretty cute, too. Her smile and her dark hair are both so shiny. But whenever he thinks about that, he remembers Opal trapped back in Ba Sing Se and feels bad.

"So, how are you guys tonight?" he asks both guards through the door. "You can come inside, you know. Pull up chairs instead of standing out there for hours. Mustn't be comfortable."

"We can handle it," says Hirram. "We're trained for this, Bolin. Endurance is just one of our strengths as warriors."

Risha's laugh is bright and shameless. She uses her long spear to brace herself as she doubles over, racked by her amusement. "You try so hard," she pats her fellow guard on the arm.

"We're professionals," Hirram huffs, looking at his partner with embarrassment.

"It's cute that you want to impress him."

"I am _not_ trying to impr—"

Bolin interrupts their squabble before his face can grow any more flushed at the implications of their words. "Look, I know you're both professionals," he says, "and I have nothing but the _utmost_ respect for you, the very _deepest_ of confidences in your capabilities... it's just I think of you guys as friends too, now. Maybe I'm wrong to do that—but I just want to know that you're comfortable. Besides, you're here to guard me, right? You can do that even better from inside my room than you can from out there. I mean, what if I decided to try and tunnel out of here, or jump out the back window? You couldn't see that from the other side of this door." He raps his knuckles at the icy metal slab that separates them. He doesn't let his skin linger on it. Bolin has licked enough frozen poles in his lifetime to know how these things end.

"Exactly," Risha agrees enthusiastically.

"Maybe he's got a point," admits Hirram.

Bolin stands well back from the doorway as they enter, just to make it clear he's not going to try and run away. He's seen them throwing their spears out in the yard; he's not putting himself in a position where one of said spears might be thrown _at him_. He shudders at the thought, and spends a long moment feeling extra conscious of his body, appreciating its current unskewered wholeness.

Once they're all inside the room, he puts an arm around each of their shoulders and brings them together in a bit of a hug. Hugs are good for bonding, and they're enjoyable, and it's also nice to have some body heat to share in this place. Risha snuggles into his neck unabashedly as he holds her on his right. Hirram starts off stiff but slowly softens into the embrace.

"Isn't this more fun?" he asks them. "We can swap stories. I'll go first."

And so Bolin tells them all about the craziness that's been going on in the Earth Em— King— Nation since the war. The refugees, the protests over the colonies, the power alliance between hostile forces of Earth and Fire.

"That's how I ended up here," he finishes. "It's just unfortunate that your Chiefs don't want to get involved—even though this will definitely affect your tribe if it gets any more out of hand."

"This does sound like the kind of thing we should be helping with. The war wasn't good for either of the Water Tribes," Risha says, voice full of concern. "I can't believe our Chiefs would just completely ignore a threat like this. The North has enough security and military to supply troops if they're really necessary."

"I don't wanna ask you guys to do anything crazy," Bolin says, looking earnestly between his two guards. "It's just I'm going crazy here not being able to do anything. I'm just one guy but I still feel like I should be doing everything I can do, not sitting around in this room. You know what I mean?"

Hirram squares his jaw. "I know what you mean, Bolin," he says seriously. "And I want to help you out."

"So do I!" Risha insists. "Just tell us what we can do."

"My brother's a captain in the navy," Hirram says. "I can get us a boat to take us down south."

"I'll talk to my friends in the guard. I can get you out of here and onto that ship."

"And Mako and my friends?" Bolin adds anxiously.

"We'll get them out too."

"And we're coming with you," says Hirram.

"Damn right we are."

Bolin takes one of each of their hands, and thanks them as sincerely as possible.

He also wonders whether this is how Kuvira felt when she left Gaoling with all of Suyin's guards following her. Bolin has no intention of doing anything _else_ Kuvira's way, but right now having learned from the worst is paying off.

 

ϟ

 

It took some time for the palace courtyard to be returned to normal after the Avatar's escape. Kuvira's agents had drilled into every foot of earth, attempting to follow the path Aang had taken, but a huge open mine of rubble was the only fruit to come of that investigation. Kuvira watches them now as they clear up the last traces of their efforts, and considers the possibility that with the power to bend ordinary earth, lava, water, air and fire, a person could truly tunnel right through the earth unscathed. The thought is only a novel one, though, and she doesn't dwell on it for long.

An airship hangs on the horizon, and as it grows closer Kuvira can see that it is not a Sato model. She readies herself for the confrontation that's sure to be ahead. She has the upper hand in it, unless Azula is playing her with double-bluffs and distractions. That is possible. The idea of bribing the Dai Li with gold and precious jewels—with simple money—is bad enough to be false. But if it is false, then it could be so blatantly false as to be suspicious as a lie...

The possibilities fan out like tree roots, like cracks in pavement, and she follows the trail of each one to distract herself from the little electric buzz of anticipation that sits in her stomach, right beside the anxiety about political matters.

The airship lands, and she and her agents are there to greet it. Azula and, to Kuvira's surprise, Ty Lee, step out. Ty Lee looks around, probably recalling the last time she was here, undercover and attempting to unseat the very authority she's visiting now. Azula locks straight onto Kuvira.

"Welcome to the Earth Empire," Kuvira greets her wife.

"It's quite the city you have here," Azula replies. She doesn't stop on her way towards Kuvira until she's actually touching her; a hand pressed against Kuvira's collar, an intimate gesture. Kuvira doesn't relax into it, unsure of whether Azula's bribery of the Dai Li could be accompanied by an assassination. She knows better than to rule it out.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" she asks Azula.

"Well, I wanted to see your place," Azula says nonchalantly. Then, quietly enough that none of the guards should be able to hear, "and, you know, you've had me on my bed. It's time I had you on yours."

The words burn through to Kuvira's core. She leans in and kisses Azula, because she can. It also may be the last chance she's afforded.

"That could be arranged," she smirks at Azula's comment, just as she would if she had no idea what the Fire Lord has planned.

"Give me a tour," Azula requests. "Start with your quarters."

 

Kuvira remains vigilant—outwardly relaxed so as to avoid suspicion, but always keeping Azula in her line of sight, watching where her hands go. They reach Kuvira's room and leave the guards outside. The door is shut. Azula walks around the space.

"It has a decent outlook," she says, passing the window. "But it's not exactly _regal_. Why do you not use the former king's rooms?"

"This room serves its function."

"Is its function to make you claustrophobic?" Azula touches the stone walls, clacks her nails against them as though she's testing for hollowness. She certainly won't find that in any of the stonework here.

Then Azula stoops, undoes her shoes and begins to pull them off. Her trousers follow with relatively little fanfare, the fabric pooling fine and glossy as water around her ankles. Already reaching for her belt, she steps over them, another step towards Kuvira.

Either she intends to fight Kuvira in the nude (Azula's bending element comes from inside her body, so this would be a valid tactic if not for the solid supply of stone and metal objects in the room with which Kuvira could arm herself even without her armour on. She thus downgrades this possibility to improbable) or Azula wants a last taste before she tries to overthrow her. Knowing what the Fire Lord's plan is, Kuvira feels as close to reading her honestly as ever. It makes no logical sense for sex to factor into this coup attempt, and yet here is Azula, stripping herself with obvious intent. This is not cold politics. This is something she _wants._

Azula pauses in her disrobing to send Kuvira a hastening look. It is impatient, hungry, and it's taunting in that way Azula always is. She is a woman who fully expects the rest of the world not to keep up with her—but it has been a long time since Kuvira has let anyone leave her behind.

Kuvira begins with her gloves, pulling at the fingertips of the left hand with her right. The grey leather slides off slowly. She's never been sure what exactly makes this movement so sensual, but it always drew Baatar's eyes, and it draws Azula's now. She keeps the first glove in her palm while she tugs off the second in the same fashion. Her hands feel especially bare now, hypersensitive and ready to make their first skin-to-skin contact in several hours.

Azula is down to her chest bindings.

"Stop," Kuvira tells her firmly before she can begin unravelling them. Azula holds her hands up. She looks pleased as Kuvira stations herself right in front of her and takes care of the bindings herself, weaving her arms around Azula's waist to pass the fabric strap back and forth, like a kind of dance.

Once the bindings are off, Kuvira sets her hands on Azula's waist. Even without the belt that cinches her middle in, her figure is tight, bound in lean muscle. She is a perfect hourglass—and a ticking time-bomb.

Kuvira is still almost entirely clothed, but before turning her attention to remedying this she takes a moment to kiss her way down Azula's neck. A soft press of lips against her jugular, an inhale that transports her as vividly as the scent of the flowers that grew in Suyin's garden back in Gaoling, or the odour of soldiers' boots, or the clothes Baatar left behind, before Suyin demanded some of them back and Kuvira donated the remainder. A light drag of tongue over Azula's collarbone and they both shiver, a chain reaction. Kuvira's bare hands feel the stuttering of Azula's breath as they rest on her ribcage, thumbs gently sliding up and down, circling, underlining her breasts. A touch of teeth to the stiff muscles of her upper pectorals, softening back into kisses where Azula's body softens too. She layers her attention over one spot to draw out that red shade Azula wears so well. It's immersive, the heat that the Fire Lord's bare skin gives off, the light sheen of sweat, the rush of blood just under the surface—

Kuvira pauses. Something isn't right—

She recognises the poison more slowly when she isn't expecting to find it, but once she's identified it the metallic presence is undeniable. She's confident that she finished the job properly when she undid the harm Sego inflicted—but either she was very wrong, or some new dose of poison has been administered, because she doesn't doubt what she senses now.

"What's wrong?" Azula asks. Kuvira has paused for a split second too long, mouth hovering over the dusty pink edge of an areola.

"Nothing at all," she lies. "It's possible I missed you, that's all."

"It's understandable that you would."

Kuvira grips Azula by the waist and guides her towards the bed. Azula climbs up onto it and allows herself to be spread backwards. Kuvira hovers between her thighs. The fabric of her uniform must be rasping against sensitive skin. It's past time that her clothes found the floor. Her belt is easy to undo with just her bending, but the rest of her jacket will require a more hands-on approach.

"You know what," Azula watches her lazily from amongst the sheets, her hair fanning out across the two simple pillows Kuvira keeps on the bed, "leave it on, for now."

Kuvira climbs back onto the bed, places a hand on the mattress near Azula's head and leans on it while she kisses her. Azula does not strain upwards to meet her; she simply lies back and takes what Kuvira gives, directing her with her usual lack of compunction. Kuvira traverses the body under her; the flat abdominals, the silvery scars that mark Azula as the warrior that she is, the dips and swells and fine hairs, the subtle changes in skin tone in the tenderest places. Awake to it now, it's impossible to ignore the way the poison contaminates all these treasures.

But Kuvira reminds herself sharply of her purpose. She cannot justify _removing_ the handicaps of the woman who would steal her empire. Sex is not diplomacy. Even in the event of _love_ pragmatism has to win out.

"Are you _certain_ nothing's distracting you?" Azula huffs at one point. "You're usually better at this." She's aiming for flatly unimpressed, but the involuntary push of her hips betrays her.

"I can always count on you to tell me the truth about these things," Kuvira chuckles.

"In matters of pleasure, why lie?"

Azula doesn't dilute the sounds she makes with many recognisable words after that.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is late and that's unfortunately likely to be the shape of things to come. I wrote a post on [tumblr](http://henrymercury.tumblr.com/post/139473859592/real-life-arrives-ruins-everything) very recently, the gist of which was that real life is going to kick my ass this semester/year and I don't yet know what kind of fic-writing schedule I'll be able to maintain (though I definitely have no intention of abandoning anything). Nobody's as bummed as me about this, so I hope you can spare me some patience. 
> 
> As always thanks for reading. I enjoyed playing with a slightly different tone in this chapter, so let me know whether it reads well or falls short suspense-wise.

Six Dai Li agents escort Ty Lee to a sparsely furnished house in the upper ring. The walk there is so silent and stiff that she tries to make conversation, asks their names, tries to flirt in case that makes any of them open up. She has no success. It must be the least success she's ever had with men, women, anybody. Not one of the six even cracks a smile. Ty Lee wonders how the Dai Li are even recruited—where and how they find people made so completely from rock and shadow. She wonders how they become immune to all that contagious unease they carry with them everywhere. It really dampens Ty Lee's spirits—which, given the state they were already in, is something.

The house is large. Ty Lee could do a whole gymnastics routine across the floor if she felt like it. (She does not.) The Dai Li scuttle off, but as soon as they're gone a woman appears in the doorway. She smiles like a stylised drawing printed onto an unwilling piece of parchment. With the sun behind her she casts a long shadow where she stands. Ty Lee edges away from it before she knows what she's doing.

"Hello Lady Ty Lee," the woman says. "My name is Joo Dee, and I will be your host while you are in our wonderful city. If you have any questions at all please direct them towards me."

Ty Lee has seen a lot of forced smiles in her time, and she's felt plenty of them in her own cheeks. Joo Dee's whole face must be feeling cramped and horrible. Somehow Ty Lee doesn't think asking her to stop will do any good. She's learned quite a bit of Earth Kingdom history since taking up residence on Kyoshi Island; Suki in particular is an enthusiast. It turns out that the Kyoshi warriors aren't the only warrior legacy that Avatar Kyoshi left behind—she trained the Dai Li too. Suki talks about them like they're weasel-snakes, and Ty Lee can understand that. The way Suki described their mindbending was chilling enough, but seeing the result before her—while she stands alone in the deadest living room she's ever been in—stirs up much more visceral fear.

Joo Dee fills some of the silence with her mechanical speech. She brews tea which Ty Lee doesn't drink. She doesn't trust this place. Still conscious of how Azula confided in her on the way here—how that can only mean she has become disposable—she is on high alert. She steps quietly in case she should miss the stepping of another behind her. No one else comes through the door for the remainder of the day. Someone brings food by the house, which Joo Dee goes outside to accept, then sets out for her. Ty Lee only manages a few mouthfuls. She is relieved not to have been invited to dine at the palace, but also worried about what might be happening there. If Azula's coup is successful, she might slip up and harm Kuvira enough that she'll regret it. What if they fight, bending and all, and one of them is killed? And if Azula's coup is not successful... well, the Dai Li don't seem very forgiving, nor does their commander. If Azula goes down, Ty Lee will probably be put down too thanks to her connection to her.

She misses Katara, misses flowers and turtle ducks and discussions that actually had the power to soothe anxiety, alleviate pain. She hopes Katara will be okay if she doesn't make it back. Hopes she will forget quickly and go on to find something good for herself. Forgetting isn't easy, though, she knows.

Ty Lee wanders around the house, checks out the bedroom and the back entrance. Tentatively, she tries the back door. The handle on it squeaks in protest and she winces, preparing for Joo Dee to materialise, summoned by the suspicious noise. For all the sound that it makes, the door doesn't budge. There's a small bolt on the inside, but Ty Lee doesn't think it's the only lock.

The night passes unpleasantly. Joo Dee leaves, at least, but Ty Lee's skin still feels prickly, like her body knows it's being spied on. She stays up stretching (there's an awful lot of tension to be relieved after the stress and the long airship flight) until she runs out of muscle groups to work on, and her mind finally blurs enough with tiredness that she might have a chance at sleep. The bed is covered in soft cushions but once she moves them aside the mattress is hard, and she dozes uncomfortably until she hears a sound that's too close, and bolts upright. Maybe there's a window open, she tells herself. That would explain why a noise from outside could seem so loud.

She pads through the house on the balls of her feet, prepared to spring and dive if necessary, arms up and fingers already pointed ready to strike if she needs to defend herself. A burst of cold air hits the back of her neck and she shudders. It's chilly in these parts compared to the Fire Nation. She follows the direction of the draft to a window. There's a small crack in the corner of it, where the glass has been sealed imperfectly to the wooden frame. On the table just in front of the window, some papers Joo Dee brought her about local food and vague but dogmatic accounts of Ba Sing Se history rustle. A few scrolls lie on the floor, likely blown down by a breeze. Probably the sound she heard. Ty Lee touches the strange little gap in the window, making sure it isn't just a trick of the light, her sleepy eyes deceiving her. It's real enough. It's almost wide enough for her to poke a finger through it to the outside. Almost, but not quite.

She walks back to bed, exhausted again from all the anxious ups and downs, and ponders the small design flaw in the apparent perfection of Ba Sing Se's wealthiest district. An oversight that seems to tell of haste, makeshiftness. She wonders whether anyone actually buys the gleaming, luxurious façade of it; whether people actually live their whole lives without looking closely enough at it to notice. Or whether they're never here long enough to get the chance.

 

ϟ

 

Katara wakes up to the sounds of an argument. Her head feels... spirits, it aches. It's hard to tell what portions of the pain are down to injuries from the bombings, what's exhaustion, dehydration, what might even be oversleeping. Everything before sleep feels a long way away now.

She goes to stand up but her body isn't prepared. She starts over: sits up first, slowly letting herself adjust. She takes the time to remember where she is; the walls around her are white-painted and bare except for a bright, squiggly drawing stuck lopsidedly in the centre of the far one. It's done in a style Katara recognises as her brother's. The image is of Toph glaring, a memento in remembrance of her days as the notorious 'Runaway'. It's not exactly an easy picture to look at; its glaring white eyes and jagged teeth are downright disturbing. Katara imagines this is exactly why Toph hung it in full view of the bed in her guest room. For Katara, though, it also brings back fond memories and makes her feel as though Sokka is a little closer by. She hasn't lost any sleep to its creepiness.

"There's no way you're coming in here with those dumb Ozai-worshipping thugs!" Toph's voice, though it's coming from another room, is forceful enough to rattle Katara's headache.

"Fine then," Suyin speaks sharply. "Your academy can be locked out of the city."

Katara heads towards the voices as fast as she can. She steadies herself on the doorframe and the walls in a few places as her vision swims in a bright-blinding blood rush. She finds Toph at her front door. Suyin is on the other side, leaning familiarly on the doorframe but still very much behind the threshold.

"What's going—" Katara's sore, sleepy throat sticks. "What's going on?"

"The people are taking action against the dictators destroying their nations and the world," Su says. "Toph here refuses to take a stand."

"I'm taking a stand right now!" Toph disagrees. "Taking a stand against anyone who tries to make me work with the New Ozai Society. Who, in case you tripped and hit your head recently, _bombed_ this town just two days ago."

Two days. Katara adds this to her mental log. If the explosions were two whole days ago that means she slept for at least half of one of those days in addition to sleeping through the night. She worries about how much may have changed in that time.

"Why didn't you wake me?" she asks Toph.

"Katara," Toph replies, forgoing her usual nicknames in Suyin's presence, "Nobody can do _everything_ all by themself. And I say this as someone who can do most things. You needed the rest so I didn't interrupt you."

"That was... considerate of you."

"I'm a ray of sunshine."

"If you two are finished—"

"Oh be quiet, Su. You're such a child, always _me me me, pay attention to me—_ "

" _I_ am a child? You're the one who's a teenager!"

"I'm twenty! And I'm clearly more mature than you are. I've taught you a thing or two before!"

"About metalbending, not about _life_ —"

Katara's headache swells, blood pounding agonisingly, growing louder as though in an effort to drown out the shouting.

"Stop!" she cries. She pauses to cough and wheeze for a moment, then finishes: "Suyin, can you explain what exactly you're trying to do?"

"We're setting up a perimeter around the Yu Dao township so we can establish a stronghold here. The people calling themselves _world leaders_ have lost all focus on what's happening on the ground in the colonies. They're too busy with their own power struggles and delusions. It's the perfect opportunity for us to consolidate the resistance forces that are already in play into something cohesive, something big enough to make a mark on the political landscape."

Katara frowns. She's never liked the way Suyin slips into this patronising register; she's not oblivious to her obfuscation.

"The New Ozai Society aren't allies," she croaks. "A lot of things are complicated with the state of the world right now, but whether or not those people are the good guys is _not_ one of those things. They want Ozai back, Su. _Ozai_. What kind of people must they be?"

"Oh, ones with economic concerns, mostly," Su blithely waves a hand, as she does. Katara, tired, in pain and reaching the end of her tether, almost reaches out and to twist that flapping wrist. "It's not a long-term alliance." Sigh. "Perhaps it's something that should be left to the adults anyway."

"Well you'd better step aside then," Toph grumbles.

"Keep this place as your little island, exempt from worldly politics, if you insist. But don't get in the way of the people trying to actually fix things," Suyin snaps in return. "Step aside."

"Fine!"

Toph bends the floor beneath Katara's feet so that it slides her out of the door's path while Toph slams it in Su's face.

"She'd fence in the whole damn sky if it was possible," Toph complains.

Katara can picture it.

"We can't let her do this. We have to do something, Toph. You're the greatest earthbender ever—you could probably stop them almost single-handedly if only you'd try."

"Listen Sweetness, maybe I _could_ stop them from fencing this town all up, and maybe I could even get between Su and these New Ozai freaks—but if I stop them then somebody'll have to step in with an alternative. I'm not gonna lead these people. I don't have a straight answer to their problems and there's no way I'm interested in playing politics. I'll give Su a piece of my mind when she's threatening my turf—but my turf is this school, not the entire town, the entire colony, _all_ the colonies. I mean, where would it stop? Is every problem in the entire world my responsibility?"

"It's all of our responsibility!"

"No wonder you're so tired."

As if on cue, Katara's knees start to shake under her where she stands. Or maybe they've been shaking, and she's only noticing it now. Either way, she takes a few deliberate steps and the momentum helps her remain steady. She opts to keep moving, rather than sit down.

"There's always..." Toph begins thoughtfully, then shakes her head. "Nah, that's probably a stupid idea. Too much of a gamble."

Katara lifts a brow and then remembers such a gesture means nothing to Toph. "What's a stupid idea?" she asks. "Tell me."

"Well, you know, Suyin has a sister," explains Toph.

Katara has known no such thing prior to this moment.

"A sister who's not a huge fan of hers. Lin would've done pretty much anything to see Su brought back into line."

"Then why wait until now—"

"To mention her?" Toph finishes. "Because like I just said, that's what she _would_ have done. Once. But Lin hasn't taken any visitors since around the time I finished training her in metalbending, months ago. She's turned into a damn hermit on some sort of survivalist kick. War wasn't good to her."

"Where can I find her?" Katara presses.

"If she's still in that bunker of hers, she'll be buried somewhere underneath Gaoling."

"Then that's where I'm going. Are you going to come with me?"

"Nope."

" _Fine_."

 

ϟ

 

Ty Lee doesn't see any of Azula for days. She's kept under pretty strict supervision by Joo Dee (and whatever agents are hiding in the shadows, not making themselves known except as prickles at the back of Ty Lee's neck). The days here are creepy enough, but the nights continue to unsettle her until she's walking around seeing double from insomniac exhaustion.

Tonight she settles into the fluffy pillow face first, too ready to be unconscious to feel properly uneasy about having her back to the room.

She is pulled back to wakefulness too soon. She doesn't know what by, or exactly how long she's slept. All she can tell is that there's not a hint of daylight coming in. She can't hear the telltale whistle of a breeze leaking through the gap she discovered earlier, either. Maybe she dreamed of something and that was what roused her. She drifts off again, and is just too far under sleep's anaesthetic to react to the indisputable sound of a foot pressed to a squeaky floorboard.

Suddenly a new layer of darkness falls over her face and her breaths all taste of fabric. Her wrists and her feet are bound in stone before she can struggle her way out of the grip. The fabric is pulled tighter and tighter until she can feel each thread pushing into the skin. What is probably a hand covers her mouth and nose, and after a moment of burning panic she returns to unconsciousness.

 

She wakes aching. Her head, her lungs, her wrists and ankles, her back. She is sitting upright in a very stiff chair, the knobs of her spine pressed into the seat's metal back. Thankfully the chair back ends just before her shoulders, so she can move her neck just the tiniest bit to ease the stiffness. It isn't much, though.

Her arms and legs are bound to those of the chair with stony cuffs, the feeling of which reminds her of how she came to be here, wherever she is. It all reeks of the Dai Li, and Ty Lee's heart pumps her body full of useless adrenaline at that thought. There's a rag jammed in her mouth, roughly enough that it has split her dry lips a little at the edges. The rag smells musty—or maybe that's just how the whole place smells. It's very dark, but that could just be because it's still night time. There's a dripping sound somewhere in the background, though, which echoes slightly in the gloom, and Ty Lee associates it with being underground.

A light goes on, sickly and green, illuminating walls that look like a roughly drilled tunnel. Some of the light catches on little trickles of water. There's a strange circle drawn on the ground around her, a line of metal the function of which she can't place.

_Some place to die_ , Ty Lee thinks to herself even though she tries not to. With all the risky things she's done in her life have come any number of potential deaths—bad hitch-hikes, circus accidents, fighting alongside Azula, and Azula herself. She expected she'd die falling from a great height, or in the middle of a battle—or maybe, just maybe, old and grey sitting on the deck of a hut on Ember Island. This spooky tunnel isn't what she'd have bet on.

Maybe they haven't brought her here to kill her, though. They could have done that anyway, after all. Maybe they're going to brainwash her and she'll spend the rest of her days smiling painfully at tourists and introducing herself as Joo Dee.

Footsteps ring out behind her, clapping against the stone in a patient, measured stroll. Ty Lee can't turn her head far enough to see the person coming towards her. It might not be the Dai Li, she reasons, if she can hear this person coming—but then maybe the Dai Li just have no need left for stealth—

Someone pulls at the knot in the cloth that gags her, and a few moments later the cloth comes loose. Ty Lee pushes it away with her tongue, spits it out and takes a nice deep breath. The person behind her moves around to the side, and Ty Lee can finally make them out.

"Calm down," Kuvira says, raising a hand to silence whatever protest she expects from Ty Lee. "I've no intention of making you the next Joo Dee. Believe me when I say it would bring me no pleasure to do so. I simply want you to understand the weight of the discussion we're about to have."


	28. Chapter 28

"I know why Azula came to Ba Sing Se—what she planned to do." Kuvira does not look down at Ty Lee as she speaks.

Azula has either been unsuccessful in her coup, then, or she hasn't attempted it at all. Ty Lee's heart beats impossibly faster, harder. "Where is she?" she asks through gritted teeth.

Kuvira smiles—a smile that actually looks a tiny bit soft around the edges. "Azula is resting, at present. She's been requiring quite a lot of sleep, lately. I'd like to flatter myself and say that I've tired her out, but I'm afraid that's not the case. Ty Lee, please ensure you answer me truthfully: who has poisoned Azula since I've been away?"

"Poison?" Ty Lee is incredulous. As the idea settles into her mind, though, she can't deny that it makes sense. She's been well aware that Azula has not been well, after all. "I... I'm not sure who to suspect. To be honest, Azula doesn't have many friends these days. It could be anyone."

Kuvira nods. "There will always be people who want the Fire Lord out of the way," she says. "But Azula in particular has accumulated opponents over the years, both political and... personal." With the last word, Kuvira's eyes settle on Ty Lee at last.

"Am _I_ a suspect?" Ty Lee asks. "I have my problems with Azula, but I wouldn't try to _kill_ her. I—"

"Not a prime suspect," Kuvira stops her in her tracks. "Don't worry. I won't claim to know you well, Ty Lee, but even to me this doesn't look like your doing."

"So... what am I doing here, then? Why am I tied to this chair like you're about to brainwash me like the rest of your Joo Dees—your slaves?"

Kuvira frowns. She even looks a little hurt. "Please, Ty Lee," she says, "you don't know what you're talking about."

Ty Lee thinks of Joo Dee's torturous smile and the assortment of emotions rolling through her coalesces into anger. "Well, how else do you explain a bunch of people whose entire identities have been stripped away from them, so that they can be your creepy spying hosts in the city?"

"Recruits to the Joo Dee program—at least since my takeover—are all either serious criminals given an alternative to the death penalty, illegal immigrants deemed high-risk by the Dai Li, or volunteers." Kuvira reads the doubt on Ty Lee's face. "I know what you're thinking," she continues. "Who would volunteer for such a thing? But the war has left many people with minds that are... inhospitable. People are displaced, traumatised, left without loved ones or any means by which to live. To some, the clean slate offered by the program is a _gift_. Volunteers also earn a small wage, remitted to any family they may have left. As I hope you can see, the system I have in place may seem harsh, but it is one of pragmatism, not inhumanity."

Ty Lee isn't convinced—she is too busy picturing broken people dragging their heels as family members, unable or unwilling to care for them any longer, bring them before the Dai Li—but a debate over Kuvira's systems is not what she has been brought here for.

"You know Azula well," Kuvira returns to her original subject. She seems to be looking for some kind of agreement from Ty Lee.

"Yes," Ty Lee supplies.

"I'm inclined to trust your assessment of her behaviour. You have insight, and you have also equipped yourself for a level of impartiality since your more intimate involvement with her, through a period of absence."

"I don't know what you could want me to tell you about her."

"It isn't what I want you to tell me right now," Kuvira explains. "It's what I want you to tell me in the future."

"You want me to spy on Azula for you?" It seems ludicrous; Kuvira gets oh so much closer to Azula these days than Ty Lee does. But then Azula does seem to have dismissed Ty Lee's importance lately. She has let her lips loosen around her.

"With Azula as unstable as she is, I only want to pre-empt any actions on her part that may endanger herself or others. She has not attempted to actually execute the takeover she has planned—I think since reconnecting with me she has discovered a reluctance to throw our alliance to the polar bear dogs so soon. But that doesn't mean a turn isn't coming. I don't want to see either of us hurt. Do you, Ty Lee?"

Ty Lee doesn't bother thinking very hard about that question; there's only one answer it'll do her any good to give. "Of course not," she says.

"I'm glad we're in agreement. All I'm asking for is your help in keeping things stable. Your loyalty to me will amount to loyalty to the Fire Nation as well; we are supposed to be allies now, after all. And you—born in the Fire Nation, now a Warrior of Kyoshi—surely understand as well as anyone that cooperation between Earth and Fire is for the best."

Ty Lee's shoulder itches, but she can't move to scratch it when she's bound so completely. _Understand the weight of the discussion we're about to have_ is obviously Kuvira speak for _Know that you have no choice._

"Fine," says Ty Lee. "I'll do what you want." She's not sure whether she'll play by Kuvira's rules when the time comes, but... Kuvira _does_ have a point. If Azula does something too rash, she could throw this fragile post-war world back into complete chaos. It will depend very much on the circumstances, Ty Lee thinks. Things have been changing so fast lately that she doesn't feel she can guarantee anything, other than the fact that she'll _try_ to do what's right.  

"Thank you, Ty Lee," Kuvira's face and voice both soften for a brief moment. She offers a smile that seems almost genuine, if a little tired. "You'll understand, of course, that I need to make sure the promise you've just made is trustworthy. I'll be putting in place just one small failsafe."

Ty Lee doesn't like the friendlier sound of Kuvira's voice anymore. Not if she's saying what Ty Lee thinks she is.

"You'll be completely yourself," Kuvira assures her, as a handful of Dai Li agents materialise around them. The odd metal circle on the floor rises into the air at Kuvira's command, and something starts spinning around on it, reminding Ty Lee of a tiny train on a track. It flickers and lights up as it gains momentum. It's bright and dizzying, flashing before her eyes each time it goes around. "It's just that should the Great Uniter invite you to Lake Laogai, you won't refuse."

 

ϟ

 

"There have been some developments in Yu Dao recently," Kuvira says, as they eat a private breakfast together in her chambers. They sit by the window, which does have a rather magnificent view. And the view across the table is very comparable; Kuvira's nightrobe dips very low at the neckline, and the thin satiny fabric of it leaves little to the imagination anywhere on her body. Between the Empire and the Empress, Azula's eyes are quite satisfied no matter which way they look.

"I'm aware of the New Ozai society," she replies. "They orchestrated attacks across my nation. I apprehended many of those responsible. They weren't very well organised."

Kuvira chews her mouthful politely, swallows, then speaks: "I'm afraid that might not be the case any longer. The Society has found itself an ally in Suyin."

"Surely not." Azula was briefed on Suyin's group after that servant poisoned her, supposedly an attack conducted in Suyin's name. She was briefed well enough to know that what the New Ozai Society wants is the opposite of what the rogue metalbender does.

"Believe me, no one is more surprised than I am. This is proof of how far Su is willing to take her personal vendetta against me. She'll even collaborate with _pro-Ozai_ groups just to bring me—and the partner I've chosen—down."

From what Azula understands, Suyin's family is the closest thing Kuvira had to a family of her own while growing up. Family complicates politics awfully, as Azula knows all too well. Heightened emotion drives reason out the window.

"Together we can destroy her and her minions," she offers her wife her support, because it's the considerate thing to do. Kuvira's focus seems to drift a little, and after a moment of silence Azula speaks again. "What developments in the colonies, then? Another bombing?"

"Not a bombing. The Society and Suyin's people have erected barricades around the central districts of Yu Dao. The perimeter is heavily guarded by both earth and fire benders. My reports tell me that each day so far their border has expanded. They're aiming to capture key strategic assets: mines, factories, weapons depots put in place as part of the Fire Nation occupation of the area."

"They're practically colonising," Azula notes with amusement. "A little hypocritical."

" _You're_ in no position to judge."

Azula has touched a still-raw nerve here, obviously. Kuvira's intention from the start has, after all, been to reclaim the colonies for her Empire. Azula cares little about the issue. That land has, of late, been difficult to exert control over—and she needs to consolidate her control over the Fire Nation capital before she gives it her focus. But the colonies _are_ the last remaining conquests of a war that the world is eager to declare over. New aggressions on Azula's part are not feasible—especially not if it is her wife's territory being invaded—however maintaining old aggressions that have settled into status quo is acceptable enough in the eyes of most of the world.

Azula brushes off Kuvira's jab. She is in no mood to break a moment she has been so enjoying into pieces with an argument. Whether the colonies should be hers or Kuvira's is an issue Azula is happy to put off discussing indefinitely.

And with other groups in play it is pleasantly easy to shift the focus.

"If our dissenters have banded together, surely we should do the same in order to deal with them," she suggests. "We'll have to win Yu Dao back together before we can negotiate which of us ought to govern it."

"You're right," Kuvira agrees. She takes a sip of tea and her irritation leaves her. "Trying to break through their lines with troops on the ground would be messy. Bombing from above would only strengthen whatever rhetoric Suyin is no doubt spouting about me. If we cause too many civilian casualties in Yu Dao the rest of the colonies—and potentially the rest of our countries—will question us."

Azula frowns. "What do you propose we do, then? Simply _ask_ them to give up their stronghold?"

"Yes," Kuvira says, "and no. There's something I'd like to show you."

 

 

Azula looks at the large scrolls, flattened out and pinned to the walls of the war room. Intricate designs are copied out on them. Some are rather technical, decontextualised and difficult to make sense of. Others depict the invention as a whole.

"A metal giant," she says, a little doubtfully. It _is_ more threatening than the drill which failed so dismally at bringing Ba Sing Se down, however.

"If we walk up to their gates in this machine we won't _have_ to attack them," Kuvira predicts. "They'll take one look at the power we possess and surrender."

Azula isn't sure it will work, but she doesn't stand to lose anything if doesn't; if this attempt to induce a surrender fails, she is perfectly happy to use force. Burning one colony to the ground entirely might even be worthwhile. It would send a message to any others considering rebellion—one which would not soon be forgotten. So long as the giant is equipped with enough weaponry to achieve this if it becomes necessary.

"They won't surrender unless we can show them how we'll attack. And while this machine could crush small buildings beneath its feet, stomping alone won't be enough of a threat."

"Of course not," Kuvira directs her to a page on the far side of the room. It isn't drawn in the same hand as the others; its lines are not quite as fine, its annotations not as small and detailed. On this page fire swirls from the giant's arms to roast a city down below. Azula is suddenly reminded of the plan she and her father hatched for the day of Sozin's comet. Coming in from above and blasting fire down on everything in their path.

"The original designs included mostly metal blades or flaming rocks to be launched out of the mechagiant. These earthbending projectiles are still very viable inclusions—but what element doesn't require a finite arsenal to be stored on board an attack vessel?"

Fire, of course. Firebending, unlike earth or water bending, requires nothing but the body of the bender. Position a team of powerful firebenders in the giant's arm and it will be equipped with all the weaponry it could need.

Her wife is clever and ambitious, and Azula feels more as though she is a _part of something_ than she has since the meeting where she and Father planned to use the comet to burn everything to the ground. This machine, this giant woman, will walk the earth as a testament to how powerful Kuvira and Azula both are, and how strong they are together.

"I've already assigned the manufacturing to Future Industries," says Kuvira, "a company run by a family with both Earth Empire and Fire Nation ties. The man in charge is Hiroshi Sato. He's an Earth citizen, but his late wife was Fire Nation. Their daughter Asami served in the Fire Nation military during the war. Their business is based in the colonies—further out than Yu Dao, so not anywhere currently under threat from Suyin and the Ozais. But a sizeable injection of funds does wonders for the loyalty of any town, city or state. All the people feeding their families with paychecks from Future Industries or its contractors will have the Earth Empire to thank."

"You don't want the Fire Nation to match your investment?"

Kuvira shakes her head. "No, actually—I had thought this might be a wedding gift."

Azula looks over the designs once more. The mechagiant is an intimidating war machine, a fitting gift for a conquerer. For a pair of conquerors. She likes it very much. "Well," she smiles, "it's certainly not something I already have."

 

ϟ

 

Katara boils water for tea without having to make a fire. Since meeting Korra and observing the techniques she uses, Katara has been practicing her own water heating techniques. It certainly comes in useful when she doesn't want to give away her location with a beacon of smoke from a campfire. She's still in the Fire Nation, so it isn't really cold, but she shivers in the night air nonetheless. She hears the scurrying of the various night creatures in the vegetation around her—not dense enough to be called a forest, but enough to be crawling with insects, reptiles and rodents. The rodents she is particularly aware of.

Katara looks up at the moon above her head, the sharpened curve of it, like a two-ended sword bent into a circle, its points reaching around almost close enough to touch. She wonders when exactly she started thinking of the moon as a weapon. The veins in the backs of her hands stand out in the humidity, hot little rivers of blue under her skin. She feels them moving—the ache that comes with an anxious thumping pulse, but also something more detached. She feels her own blood as just another body of water; one which is immersed in her, instead of the other way around.

A sizeable animal—some kind of rat-creature, perhaps, although a particularly big one if it is—scampers through the undergrowth and she feels its liquid too. It is not altogether different from a waterskin, as a cool voice inside her head notes, and for a moment she doesn't question it. She reaches out for the comfort of water, so neatly contained.

A squeak of pain awakens her from the strange reverie, her conscience jolts and she lets the animal go in a hurry. The tea Katara is still holding in one hand splashes out of its cup and scalds her thumb and wrist before she can cool it or wipe it away. The rat races off, pace much more urgent than before it chanced upon her.

Katara presses the palm of one hand over the raised veins on the back of the other. As though she can ever put blood of out her sight. The temptation has been getting worse since Hama showed her bloodbending, not better. _You're a bloodbender_. The old woman's voice warps in her memory, the sound falling in and out of focus, acquiring something like a pulse of its own. For every time Katara has tried to insist that bending blood once, reluctantly, out of sheer desperation, does _not_ mean she deserves to be called a bloodbender, there's been an incident like this one. Her mind wanders the way it used to when she was around lots of water—but instead of finding freedom in the ability to lose herself in the peaceful constancy of a waterfall or the depths of a crystal lake, now she worries. Now the beating of her own heart makes her afraid, and she has to keep a constant watch on herself.

There is no comfort, either, in the restrictions that are supposed to be placed on bloodbending. There is no real black and white to its possibilities. No time at which Katara can know for sure that she is safe. The moon isn't whole up above her tonight, but it's hardly a blackout, and her bending doesn't feel constrained. It makes her question how hard and fast the rules about bloodbending on full moons are and have ever been—whether they, like water itself, are made for bending and for change. She's only ever had one authority on the technique, after all. What if Hama didn't know everything? If Katara is already doing what Hama didn't think was possible, who knows what else she might be capable of, what new ways of hurting and controlling living things her subconscious might begin to crave.

She abandons her teacup and curls up on her bedroll for the night. The moon, incomplete though it is, drenches her in its light. She should be glad, but instead she misses the ceiling of her room in Zuko's palace. Misses being able to draw curtains and retreat. Her skin is not a thick enough barrier to stop the moon from bending her into something she has never wanted to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that Part 3 draws to a close!


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello  
> It's me  
> I've been wondering if after all these years you'd like an update
> 
> Fun/horrifying fact: Exactly a year ago I started writing this story down. Progress back then was ridiculously fast. Progress lately has been ridiculously slow, but I'm hoping that posting again will motivate me to write and update at a better pace for you guys. 
> 
> So here's the first bit of setup for Part Four, which promises to be the part where everything finally comes to a head. I'm sorry about all the waiting, and as always I really appreciate those of you who are sticking with me through this madness!

**PART FOUR**  
**The Bent & The Broken**

 

"It looks wonderful." Kuvira surveys the arms of the mechagiant in the Future Industries warehouse where they have been assembled. She turns to Azula. "Don't you think so, darling?"

Azula smirks at the pet name. Kuvira had slipped up just once and used the word with her wife. It was what she'd called Baatar, before, not that Azula could know that. The Fire Lord hadn't reacted the way Kuvira feared she might—she had simply laughed, that slightly dissonant, clanging laugh that Kuvira once found unsettling but now finds rather amusing. Then she had fired an equivalent endearment right back at Kuvira, and since then such exchanges have caught on as habitual.

Azula calls her _dearest_ , in a tone that's intended to mock—but on occasion, usually with her mouth held close to Kuvira's skin, she forgets about the mocking and the words slip out soft and silken (and if Kuvira is lucky even a little desperate) on a breath of hot air. In these moments Kuvira can never suppress a shudder. She restrains her own vocalisations a little less as a reward, subtle encouragement. Azula notices every cue and adjusts her approach accordingly, producing all the sounds and touching all the places that make Kuvira burn. It's volcanic, the way she feels with Azula. Kuvira is earth made so hot and molten that she's ready to erupt and overflow, ready to fracture and come apart like a deep quaking down in the earth's crust.

Of course, no such event can last forever. Kuvira knows that. It's exactly why she allows herself certain pleasures, before the moment comes when she has to cut herself off, has to snuff the flame.

"It is an impressive machine," Azula says, standing beside Kuvira, close, though not close enough to touch. Her sharp chin points up as she tilts her head to look at the huge metal structures. The openings along the arms where firebenders will be stationed. The recent and ingenious addition of cables which Kuvira's metalbenders can use to lasso their targets, ready to be zapped by bolts Azula's lightningbenders send down the wires. 

It's a combination the likes of which Kuvira has never seen before. Never even imagined. The different elements can cooperate remarkably well; it's just the different people who wield them that present difficulties.

"We should go home," Azula murmurs, too soft for any of the factory workers or guards around them to hear. "Unless you want to lodge somewhere near here tonight." The Fire Lord's tone makes it clear that she does _not_ want to lodge in the colonies, near the Future Industries warehouse they're currently standing in.

The Fire Nation capital is the closer of their two residences, but it's still not a quick flight. The afternoon is ageing rapidly and if they want to be back in time for dinner they'll have to be on their way within the next half-hour.

"Yes, let's go home," Kuvira tells her wife. _Home._ The strangeness of calling the Fire Nation palace such a thing hasn't subsided completely, but the fact it has subsided at all is a shock. Kuvira hasn't called very many places home in her lifetime—Suyin's house, really, is the only place that ever felt like a real one—and the stronghold of the enemy she fought for so long is a most unlikely addition to that short list. It's not a home in the way Suyin's was, but she has been staying there enough to start to think of it as a home _base_. Since Azula visited Ba Sing Se she's been reluctant to go off on her own again, or to allow Kuvira to leave her behind. Where Kuvira has gone, so has Azula. The Fire Lord's health, according to Ty Lee, is significantly improved when they are together.

 

 

Mai brings them tea as usual. It's a blend that Kuvira quite likes; an ordinary flavour from the Earth Empire. It's strong, but doesn't have the heavy spicing of the Fire Nation's typical teas, making for easier drinking in Kuvira's opinion. She is surprised that Azula likes it, but the Fire Lord is always quick to request this particular drink, so it's clear she does.

Kuvira checks the steaming pot Mai sets on the table for traces of metal, as she does every time. After what happened with Sego, it's a precaution that's easily justified.

No poison has shown up in any of their meals or their direct surroundings while Kuvira has been in the Fire Nation, and no additional poison has appeared in Azula's system, but the poison that is already there continues to cause discomfort. While Azula seems happy enough in Kuvira's company and is eager to keep in stride with her in every activity, she cannot hide the fact that she is fatigued. She either sleeps well past dawn or wakes too early, clambering out of bed to retch in the bathroom. Kuvira is never sure whether the sickness is related to the nightmares Azula sweats through almost every night. It's no coincidence that Kuvira herself hasn't been sleeping as well as she'd like to, either—but she made the decision to leave the poison in Azula's body, so she has to live with the consequences.

"Hiroshi Sato says the mechagiant can be fully operational in just over a week," Kuvira says, to make conversation.

"That week can hardly pass fast enough, given the state of the colonies," Azula replies between mouthfuls of tea. "They've erected so many of their fences now that it looks like a miniature Ba Sing Se down there."

"And the walls of Ba Sing Se are only stone; Su's walls are metal. There are fewer people out there with the skills required to take them down."

"You're right, we must commence searching for a competent metalbender immediately," Azula says playfully. Kuvira likes her like this; her humour combines generous helpings of both awkwardness and malice, but beneath these things there is something genuine and human to be glimpsed. "Do you have any idea where we might find one?"

Kuvira smiles. "None whatsoever."

 

 

Kuvira could get used to the jokes, she thinks, even though she _shouldn't_. It's certainly not all jokes, though. For every good day there are several hard ones.

Like tonight.

She is awoken, quite rudely, by the sound of breaking china. The racket comes from the bathroom, where candlelight is leaking under the shut door. She hears a hoarse coughing as Azula tries to shift something clogging the depths of her lungs. The coughing gets drier and more painful and turns to a choking. There's a brief moment of silence before the telltale splash of someone being sick. Kuvira's own stomach lurches, bile climbing her throat. She won't sleep now that she's been woken by this.

It's her fault, after all.

A frantic whispering comes from the bathroom, and though she can't hear who Azula is addressing or what she's saying, Kuvira knows it isn't good. Azula doesn't let servants in when she's in a bad way; she can't be talking to anyone who is actually there.

Kuvira rolls off the edge of the bed. Her body is simultaneously sleep-heavy and rushing with worry.

She speaks into the shut door: "Azula?"

"Leave me be." Azula's commanding tone cracks like dry skin, like scabs peeling away prematurely, exposing something thin and raw. It hurts to hear, knowing how much she must be suffering if she can't prevent it from showing.

It is a metal bolt that keeps the bathroom door locked, and Kuvira can no longer resist the urge to slide it out of the way. The door opens and she finds Azula crouching on the floor, hunched, the only colour in her face pooled under her eyes.

"I told you not to come. You won't do as I ask," Azula groans. "You don't care what I want."

"I think," Kuvira ventures, "there might be a difference between what you really want and what you're prepared to admit to wanting."

Azula scowls. "You may not know what it is to be _royalty_ , but you know what it is to be a leader. We can't just—"

"Not to the world," Kuvira nods. She crouches beside Azula, quickly sweeping the jagged pieces of a broken teacup away. She lays a hand on her shoulder and feels its shaking. "But we have to be honest with _ourselves_ about how we're really feeling in order to properly fool anyone else. You and I are allied now. Joined. I need to know what's going on with you if we're going to work together. We present a united front," Kuvira moves up to brush a strand of damp hair off Azula's forehead and slip it behind her ear. She trails her fingertips down her neck and along the edge of her jawline, a gentle comforting stroke. "Don't we? That means our strengths are each other's, and so are our weaknesses."

Kuvira kisses the top of Azula's head and feels hitching breaths blowing against her collarbone as Azula tries to steady herself. She wraps her arm around Azula's back, holds her a little tighter. Kuvira realises that she meant those words—she means them even as she knows the lie in them. It's very confusing. She breathes slowly and surely herself until Azula decides it's time to move back to bed.

Azula strips off her nightclothes, which are so dampened by sweat that Kuvira can see various wet patches from the outside. She doesn't bother putting anything else on before climbing in under the blankets beside Kuvira. Kuvira sneaks a hand over to her, but feels no temptation to move it anywhere that might be suggestive. She just rests it across Azula's stomach, wraps her hand around her side, fingers in between the faint stripes that her ribs make through the flesh over them. Azula lies still, stiff, for a minute before she sighs and curls into Kuvira.

In one way, Azula is the largest person Kuvira thinks she's ever known—comparable to Suyin in force of personality, and Kuvira never thought she'd say that of anyone. But all that ego is very tightly packaged. Azula is young, Kuvira remembers on nights like this. Not far beyond her teens where Kuvira has a handful more years under her belt. When Azula's knees are pulled up to her front and her head is tucked down to nestle against Kuvira's breast, it's too easy to hold all of her at once.

Kuvira lies awake, listening to Azula's skittering pulse and hoping that tonight won't be the night it stops.

 

ϟ

 

There's only one metalbender named Lin in Gaoling, according to the people Katara talked to when she first arrived in the city. _She can't be that hard to find, then_ , she'd thought to herself. She'd been wrong. Lin doesn't exactly have an address, it turns out. She's seen now and then around the place, but only ever briefly and always at different locations. One source—a five year old child—claims to have seen her disappearing into the ground near the turtleduck lake, sealing it up over herself.

Toph had said something about Lin living in a bunker. She had neglected to mention that this bunker was mobile. Finding it is something Toph could really help with if only she were here, Katara thinks, as she settles down beside the lake where the sighting was. In reality it's more of a pond, in the middle of a sprawling green lawn at a local park. There are children there, feeding crumbs to the turtleducks. Watching them, she feels particularly alone.

It's windy out in the open and her hair has been falling out of its ties. She frees what's still bound, combs her fingers through it and tries to braid it so as to tame it more effectively. It's too knotty to really work without a good combing, and her hands are a bit shaky. The finished product is nowhere near as neat as Ty Lee could have made it. It keeps most of the hair out of her eyes, though, and it will have to do.

Katara sits by the banks until it gets dark. She watches the sun disappear behind the tree line that marks the far end of the park; although the sunset's light tonight is mostly lost behind clouds, a slice of bright yellow glares through a gap, and all the cloud formations take on bright silver trimmings. Like the proverbial silver linings. Katara can't decide whether they're here to remind her to be optimistic, or to mock her for all the attempts she's ever made at looking on the bright side.

The moon takes the sun's place, and it whispers to her again. She knows the turtleducks where they sleep at the reedy edges of the pond, and knows the fish hiding in the darkened water. She visualises the wolfbats flocking in the trees around her, even though she can't see them with her eyes. It's how she imagines Toph must feel, and at the same time it's totally different. Toph loves the earth, loves to be immersed in all variants of her element—and she's allowed to love it, because there's nothing inherently evil about manipulating rocks or sand or metal.

_Immersion_. Maybe it's just that it's getting late and she's in dire need of a good rest, but Katara has an idea. There's no one around in the park anymore, and there are no lights other than the moon working against the darkness. She strips her clothes off, shivers lightly at the cool, dry wind. She leaves her underthings on and dives into the lake water. It is both frigid and slimy, and her wrists and ankles tangle on ribbons of weed, but she escapes anything that tugs at her with a quick swish of waterbending.

For the first little while, Katara just enjoys being surrounded. Surrounded by things she can control. The opposite of how she's been feeling lately, no matter where in the world she goes or who she sees. She swims around, feeling out the warm and cool patches in the water. Some of the cold spots she warms with her bending. She traces the paths of the water's faint currents as they move around her. She keeps her eyes shut for the duration; the lake is darkened anyway, other than the wavering sight of the moon up above.

Once she's had her relaxation, Katara focuses more intently on the water. With her bending she turns the whole body of it into her scout and explores its every edge, including what it can show her about the ground in which it sits. Where it runs through the dirt she takes in its fuzzy readings. She sees where it goes deeper and meets with groundwater. And, through the mud, she feels the distinctive hard edge of a metal wall.

Katara resurfaces, has her fill of air and dives back under, kicking her way towards that metal structure. No more than a foot or so of mud separates it from the lake water, and she clears that away without difficulty. What she uncovers is a vertical sheet of metal, dull but not rusted. Smooth. _Seamless_. Her pulse is thudding hard with anticipation; this is by far her most hopeful discovery in Gaoling. This could change everything.

She raps on it but hears nothing in return. She repeats the process until her knuckles begin to ache with the cold and the pressure of the knocking. _Tap_. Wait. _Tap_. Still nothing. She'd give up, but she's got no better leads to pursue, and if she's honest she doesn't really want to be out in the air anyway. She surfaces for breath and dives under yet again. After a while the whole process becomes more of a ritual than a real investigation, pointless except to satisfy a need inside herself, a yearning for something to do, for a clear path to follow.

And then, in between the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth knocks, the metal wall grows a layer of spikes.


	30. Chapter 30

Bolin leads the group up to the gates of Yu Dao. Because, apparently, Yu Dao has gates now. Really tall metal gates with watchtowers all along them, torches burning to keep everything illuminated in the night. They haven't come at night in order to sneak around or anything—it's just when they've happened to arrive. The amount of security going on here makes Bolin feel suspicious of himself, though—like when you walk past a police officer and suddenly you're scared you've done something illegal without knowing it. That's how he feels, walking up to the very large, very barricaded entrance to the place where he grew up—except here the feeling is magnified, multiplied by the number of crossbows he can see trained on them over the top of that wall.

There are two flags draping down over the entranceway—one is rectangular and green with a white crest on it that looks like a lotus, but its petals are angular and seem to be bolted together like metal. The other flag is thin and ends in two points like a rat-viper's tongue. It's red and while Bolin can't really make out the intricate little symbols that cover it, a few of them look a lot like the Fire Nation's stuff from during the war. The two flags side by side are the oddest combination he's ever seen. Whether Yu Dao is currently controlled by the Fire Nation or by whoever the metal lotus stands for, he can only guess.

He holds his hand up in the air as obviously as possible.

"We're friendly!" he calls out to anyone who can hear.

He makes sure the Northern Water Tribe guards in the party raise their hands as well. After all, they're _kind_ of heavily armed.

"We just want to talk to whoever's in charge here," when nothing changes he adds, "please?"

"I thought you said Yu Dao would be a safe place for us." Ahnah's sandpaper voice chafes at the back of Bolin's neck. She's irritable, and so is everyone here. They've had a long and turbulent journey by sea down from the north, and Ahnah went through a similar ordeal on the way up from Ba Sing Se in that balloon, before that. And in between she was kept in prison by the creepy co-chiefs Eska and Desna. And before the flight from Ba Sing Se she was stuck out in the Si Wong, and before _that_ she was being oppressed by Ba Sing Se's government which Bolin was, incidentally, a part of, and before _that_ she was a prisoner of war— the point is, when Bolin thinks about all that Ahnah has been through, he can't blame her for being a little short with him. He kind of can't believe she hasn't frozen him in a block of ice and left him to die somewhere along the way.

"I thought that it _would_ be a safe place," he mutters out the side of his mouth. "Last time I was here it was nothing like this."

"We'd better find out who's responsible for this wall," Mako says gravely. "Let's hope it's not the Earth Empire or we'll all be stranded outside its walls all over again—and that's the best case scenario."

"Neither of those flags are the Earth Empire's," Bolin points out. He motions for everyone else to stay in their places, then he and Mako advance, slowly, with their hands in the air, towards the gate.

"Who goes there?" someone shouts. The voice is rough and has a Fire Nation accent.

"Civilians," Mako answers. "Seeking safety in Yu Dao."

"We grew up here!" Bolin adds, because that much is true at least of him and Mako. "This is our home. We just want to come back."

"Names?"

"I'm Bolin," Bolin offers, and hopes he isn't ultra-recognisable as the Bolin who's been Kuvira's second. "This is Mako. And Ahnah, and Hirram and Risha, and—"

"Stay there," the voice commands. They all comply, since there's not much else they can do.

 

ϟ

 

Now that she's _found_ Lin, Katara is faced with the problem of Lin not exactly wanting to invite her in for tea. Now that the bunker wall is covered in sharp spines, she thrusts first water and then ice at it to knock, rather than doing so with her hands. The spikes grow sharper, a warning if ever Katara saw one. She doesn't know how much time she has left before Lin starts firing off those spikes as spears, and possibly spears Katara like an unfortunate otter-penguin at a fishing hole. She doesn't know how else to try and get Lin to open up, though. Unless...

Katara's been as patient as she can, but she's tired and desperate. The wall is thick, but it's less solid now that parts of it have been pushed outwards. Katara swims back from the wall and then heats the water closest to it. As the temperature rises she can feel the water around her warming too, even though she sets aside a little of her focus to keep it from boiling her alive. The water touching the wall begins to bubble, and then Katara changes her motion, pulling the water tight and freezing it. The metal groans at the sudden change in temperature. Katara targets the weaknesses she has managed to create and burrows further into them with her ice. The metal splits, screeching apart before the bunker's inhabitant can weld it back together.

Behind the bunker wall is... another wall. Katara slumps in the water, sinking for a few seconds in despair. There's no way she can make it past more than one wall at a time when her opponent is able to rebuild them with such ease.

This must be why Toph didn't want to come with her. She _knew_ it would be a total waste of time. Toph's always been the sort to let people go off on fools' errands just to let them learn a lesson the hard way, but Katara had hoped the urgency of this mission would make her a little more helpful.

She climbs out of the pond and sits on the bank, sopping wet with weeds in her hair and slimy mud stuck to her skin. She flops back onto the grass behind her and blinks both pond water and tears from her eyes.

She hears— _feels_ —a rumble and sits bolt upright again. She readies a whip of water from the pond. It's just as well, because a split second later there's a figure rising out of the ground behind her. There are chunks of rock and dirt flying Katara's way before the figure's waist is even above ground level. She springs to her feet, blinks her eyes clear with more purpose this time, and takes up the difficult task of blocking the relentless stream of projectiles being tossed at her.

"Are you Lin?" she asks as she dives away from a section of ground that tries to swallow her up.

To emphasise how redundant the question is, Lin digs a strip of metal out of the ground beneath her, a sliver off the edge of her bunker, and sends it Katara's way with the next round of rocks.

"I'm here because of Suyin, she's—"

"I've no interest in talking to _anyone_ Su sends!" Lin peels up a large sheet of metal and Katara only just manages to slice it apart with ice in time to avoid being hit square in the face.

"I'm not here on Su's behalf," she grits out as she keeps moving, all her effort devoted to deflecting the barrage Lin sends at her. The woman sure is angry. Furious. Katara's seen some serious anger management issues in her time, but Lin's now sit fairly high up that list. "I'm here because I need help stopping her. It's urgent."

Lin's attack slows. Eventually she drops her arms to her sides and swears quietly but vehemently to herself. Her chest heaves, and Katara too is left breathing heavily. The relative quiet of the night resumes, rather eerie around them now.

"What's she done _now_?" Lin asks.

 

ϟ

 

Bolin's never met Suyin before, but even at night, in the erratic light of the torches, it's obvious who she is the moment he lays eyes on her. There's something about the way she walks, parting the people around her. Bolin's seen it before.

"Bolin," Suyin says, looking him up and down so coldly he almost shivers.

"And you must be Su. I can see the family resemblance—I mean, Opal looks very like y—"

"What does Kuvira want now?"

"Kuvira? I don't know, I've had no contact with Kuvira in weeks! Several— _multiple_ weeks. I jumped ship when Opal showed me how the Earth Empire was treating refugees. That's who the people with me are—and who I am now, too, I guess. Refugees. Like I told the guards before, we're just looking for a safe place to live."

Suyin pauses for a moment. "Then where is Opal?" she asks.

Bolin's heart sinks. "She's still in Ba Sing Se," he says, trying to convey as much of his remorse through facial expressions as possible. "I have every intention of going back for her when I can, but I haven't had that chance yet. We only just made it out of the desert, and then we only just got away from the Northern Water Tribe."

"He's telling the truth," Ahnah's voice scratches out from behind Bolin. "And believe me I wouldn't even be around, let alone vouching for him, if he was still with the Empire."

"An airship full of refugees from outside Ba Sing Se did recently arrive here," Suyin says. "They said that four people of your description—" she points to Bolin, Mako, Ahnah and Baraz— "left them stranded in the desert."

Bolin's heart soars and then sinks again just as quickly. The others made it here! They're safe! But they think he's abandoned them. Bolin hates the thought of ever abandoning anyone who needs him. He left the Empire because he found out the Empire wasn't helping people. Now he's working against the Empire and still leaving people in need.

"No!" he wails. "We left to find help so we could come back for them! But instead of helping, the water tribe chiefs imprisoned us."

"I find it difficult to believe that the water tribe imprisoned you, given that they've sent you away with a small army at your heels."

"The water tribe people with us chose to leave against their chiefs' wishes," Mako cuts in. He explains it more calmly than Bolin was about to. "They've come to help keep the Empire at bay because Bolin convinced them it was the right thing to do."

"Hmm," Su considers. "I'm inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt, here."

"Yes!" Bolin grins. "That's great! Thank you!"

"Letting you in won't be without consequences, though. You should be prepared for those."

"Consequences? What kind of consequences?"

"As one of Kuvira's inner circle—"

"Formerly!"

"As a _former_ member of Kuvira's inner circle, then, I'm sure you understand that these are politically complex times. Ties between not only the nations but the different groups within them are straining and rearranging themselves. The fact that you, all of you, are here in Yu Dao cannot be separated from your political significance."

She's confusing him, but Bolin nods along. "I understand that it's difficult. But can you just let us in, quietly? We'll disappear, all we want is to—"

"On the contrary," Su says, tutting at stupidity Bolin hadn't sensed in his own words, but which seems to be very clear to her. "We're going to announce the defection of Kuvira's second in command, as well as his and the water tribe's support of _our_ cause to everyone, loud and clear."

Suyin's smile is wide and her tone is something like Opal's; friendly as though you could chat about anything, a tone that says it would be ludicrous to accuse her of not being open to reason and negotiation. But, even more than Opal's, Suyin's geniality is wrapped around something hardened, possibly jagged. As she looks at him, not even the shallow pleasantry of her smile reaches her eyes.

Bolin feels uneasy. Unease is becoming his natural state, it seems—which only compounds the uneasiness. He looks across at Mako, who looks back at him with an expression that says he's reached the same conclusion. They can't go back now. Even if they had anywhere else to go, and even if the people they've got with them weren't impatient to finally settle somewhere safe, Bolin doesn't think they'd be able to turn around because Suyin wouldn't let them try.  

 

ϟ

 

Ty Lee is sitting by the turtle duck pond mulling over a conversation with Mai. It had gone something like this:

"Where's Katara?"

"Not here."

"Where'd she go?"

"Don't know."

"You're running the Fire Nation's intelligence network right now."

"Fine. She goes to Yu Dao sometimes."

"How long's she been gone?"

"Since before the bombings."

Mai had been irritable, and Ty Lee had been too anxious and desperate for answers to properly cheer her up, or coddle friendlier responses.

She stares into the water and counts up a dozen possible answers to the question of where Katara is now. Whether she's okay. Whether she's even _alive_ —Ty Lee doesn't like to think about that one, but she knows she can't rule it out either. Maybe Katara just had enough of the Fire Nation and is somewhere else now, somewhere that makes her happier. Maybe she's with the Avatar. Ty Lee doesn't know whether the pang of jealousy she feels when she considers this option makes her a bad person or not.

All her wondering makes little difference anyway. Not when a traitor has been planted inside Ty Lee. Not when she's no longer her own to offer up to Katara anyway, in mind or in body. She can't leave to go searching for her. She can't ask Katara to come to her. She couldn't turn a truly private ear to catch whispered words so there's no point wishing Katara were here to speak them.

 Azula is either walking by or looking for Ty Lee, because she appears, comes to stand next to where Ty Lee sits. She makes no move to sit, just keeps looming over her.

"It's rare for you to be without Kuvira," Ty Lee points out when the silence becomes painful. It's instinctive, even if she has no reason to try and alleviate Azula's social discomfort anymore.

"You should be kinder to her," says the Fire Lord.

Ty Lee has not, since Ba Sing Se, restrained her tongue when it comes to opinions of the Great Uniter. It's not enough to be considered a _perk_ of the situation she's in, but it has been therapeutic on occasions. If she speaks ill of Kuvira, Azula is more likely to express her own feelings, and Ty Lee will have more candid information to bring back to the woman herself.

"Why's that?" Ty Lee asks.

"I went to Ba Sing Se with several intentions, one of which was to see a demonstration of the Earth Empire's famed re-education techniques. I took you with me for a few reasons, but one of them was to be used as a subject for such a demonstration. Kuvira... changed my mind."

By _changed her mind_ , Ty Lee believes Azula means Kuvira distracted her. All Azula's plans went out the window the moment she met back up with her wife. Azula is so zealous about denying her affection for Kuvira that she is wilfully blind to all the effects of it. Ty Lee would think it was too simple a downfall for someone of Azula's power and intelligence, if she didn't know Azula on that personal level.

"You should thank her, in fact," Azula goes on. "For your freedom and your sanity."

Ty Lee keeps her face impassive. "I'll be sure to," she says. "I'll repay her for all of that one day."


	31. Chapter 31

Mai is grateful that her family's house is so near the palace. She walks there, dismisses the few servants presently at work (at least compared to those at the palace, they are few) and takes a seat across from her father, who has been waiting for her.

She sent a letter to him just days ago, so the fact he's come to meet her so quickly means he wants something. This is unlikely to set Mai's plans back, so she isn't bothered by it.

"Mai," her father greets her. "I was surprised to receive your letter."

"You don't exactly write to me either," she shrugs.

"Well, we're here now, aren't we."

Mai cuts to the chase. "You know of the attacks across the Fire Nation and the colonies," she says. It's not a question, but he nods. "I was talking to one of the men responsible shortly before I wrote to you."

The man had been more of a boy, really; a soft little puppet; the younger son of a noble family who hadn't even fought during wartime. Those who recruited him were desperate, clearly—desperate and probably connected to him socially. He'd broken before she'd even shown him a knife, let alone touched him with one; she'd almost been embarrassed on his behalf. But he'd given her a name. Several names, but one of particular significance: _Ukano_.

"You could join us, Mai," her father says, clearly not ashamed to have been caught. "You could escape from that monster of a girl and—"

"Escaping the monster? If you're trying to talk me into joining a movement inspired by _Ozai_ you'll need to try some other line."

"We're going to change the face of the Fire Nation government," he says, like that alone constitutes a plan. The face of the Fire Nation government has already been doing too much changing of late.

"And who would the head of the New Ozai Society declare Fire Lord? Yourself?"

The look on his face says yes. Also present in his frown and the twist of his mouth is irritation at the way she's addressing him—but Mai doesn't have to care, doesn't even have to pretend that she does, anymore.

"You'll fail," she tells him. "You may have a pack of rebels eating out of your hand but those with real influence won't be so easily swayed. You couldn't possibly step in with no technical claim to the throne and expect the military, the cabinet and the other nobles to all throw their lots in with you suddenly enough for it to work. Accumulating the necessary loyalties to rule this country takes time and patience, and has to be done _before_ a strike, not in the rush after one. You taught me what I know about politics; I'm surprised you've forgotten all of this."

"How can you be so sure they won't turn on her?" Ukano asks. "Her claim to the throne is suspicious, and her leadership is weak and erratic."

"Oh, they'd turn on Azula," Mai says casually. It's possible she's enjoying this conversation. She indulges herself; with everything it's taken to reach it, she's more than earned this moment of satisfaction. "But that's not who you'll have to take them from."

 

ϟ

 

"You look tired," Azula says. It's one of those statements that dares Kuvira to tell her how much more exhausted Azula herself looks.

"Whatever you think is wrong with my face this morning, the makeup will cover it," Kuvira shrugs. It's a system she's been operating within for some time. The Great Uniter wears her mask at all times; some times that mask is only figurative, others it is tangible.

To prove her point she dabs cream under her eyes, the pigment disguising the dark bags.

"Give that to me," Azula demands, snatching the cream out of Kuvira's hand.

"What are you—"

Azula pushes Kuvira backwards until her legs hit a chair, and she sits, so full of curiosity about what comes next that she allows herself to be guided.

Azula dips a finger in the pot and bends down in front of Kuvira to wipe the cream off against her cheek. She blends it out slowly with the same fingertip. Kuvira lets her eyes fall shut and focuses on that one pinpoint of contact. She hums under her breath, half sigh and half groan.

A second later there's weight on her thighs. Legs straddling her own. Azula claiming her lap and pushing in close to get better access. She shoots a hand out and picks up a brush and the black colour Kuvira uses to line the upper lids of her eyes.

"Hold very still," Azula warns as she readies the thin brush. Kuvira complies, because she doesn't want to have to wash dark smudges from her face. She hopes Azula's hands are steady enough for the task she's undertaking.

The intense focus on Azula's face as she works is a thing of beauty. It's not as aggressive as her focus when she fights, when she bends; nor is it as serene as her focus during meditation. This is the focus of a craftswoman.

After the first stroke of the brush against Kuvira's eyelid, Azula pulls back. Kuvira pushes away from the back of the chair. She cups the back of Azula's neck, runs her fingers up her nape, burrowing into the bottom of her hair and gripping just hard enough to move her where she wants her for a kiss.

"I love that you want me so much, but we're supposed to be making ourselves presentable for an outing, not the opposite." Azula says this with a typical measure of haughtiness. It's good-natured, though, inasmuch as Azula can be good-natured. And Kuvira doesn't mind it, because she knows her wife wants her just as much in return. "Now let me do your other eye or I'll go and attend to my own makeup instead."

Kuvira complies. She shuts her eyes again, feels the cold wet touch of the brush, the gentle heat of Azula's breath as she leans in close enough to see what she is doing.

Azula withdraws her hand at last, slides off Kuvira's lap, and Kuvira opens her eyes to see her wife picking up some other cosmetic solution, full of intent.

"I don't wear lipstick," Kuvira protests when she sees what it is. "I don't like the consistency of it. It's too much trouble to keep it in good condition throughout the day—that's time and effort I could be spending on more productive, more necessary tasks."

"Fine," says Azula. "Do you dislike it on _me_ , though?" She holds out the brush to Kuvira, who takes it.

This time by invitation, all her focus lands on Azula's mouth. The Fire Lord's lips are full, perfect in shape, already somewhat rosier in colour than the skin surrounding them in a way Kuvira's lips are not. She leans in.

"Uh uh uh," Azula stops her, presses her finger lightly to Kuvira's lips. She's retracted it before Kuvira can nip at it in frustration, lick or try any other trick to tempt Azula into something more fun.

Kuvira sighs. She dips the flat short brush into the red stain Azula has provided, and she spreads it like a thick ink across the Fire Lord's bottom lip to start with. Eyeliner is something she does for herself, but she's not so well practiced at this. Still, the principles are the same, and she has a steady hand and a good eye for fine work. She manages to make Azula's mouth up to a standard that she thinks will satisfy.

"Done," she declares.

Azula dips down and presses her mouth against Kuvira's.

Kuvira pulls away in surprise. "What are— I _just_ —" Her own mouth feels sticky now.

Azula surveys her with a smirk. "I like that colour on you," she says.

Kuvira can't help the shocked laugh that bursts out of her. She rubs her thumb along under her bottom lip and it comes away striped with crimson.

"Fix it," she orders. "Fix this mess right away."

Azula laughs and the sound of happiness tips Kuvira over into laughter once more. It's a welcome break from the sickness, and from the double-edged alliances and schemes. They laugh until Azula is wheezing faintly, until Kuvira has to dab at her eyes to prevent her eyeliner from running.

 

ϟ

 

" _You?_ "

"Me," Mai repeats with a dry satisfaction. If Ukano has spent all these year as her father completely overlooking the potential within her, failing to notice her skills or intelligence, then he fully deserves to be beaten by her now.

"You," he says again, less disbelievingly, perhaps making peace with the fact. "You're serious."

"The officials won't turn on me," Mai tells him. "But consider this: I use the support I already have to overcome the problem of dynasty, and you become the father of the Fire Lord. You taught me about politics. Surely you trust your own student."

She expects him to be bitter, envious, but she also knows he will keep those feelings sealed beneath expressions of acquiescence. He is in many ways a fool, but she trusts him to choose the right course here. The course of action which is both easier for him and more likely to succeed.

"Make no mistake," she adds, just for fun, "I already hold all the power of the Fire Lord."

"And what should my role be, from now?"

"Ensure that Yu Dao comes under your control," Mai instructs him, and he nods obediently. It's altogether too gratifying after a childhood of being the obedient one. Ukano never fought Mai over privileging Azula's demands above his when Azula came to take Mai away with her—because Azula was, then, the direct agent of Ozai. But this is different. Today, Mai makes her own demands and they are heard.

"We have been in temporary collaboration with Suyin's forces while barricading the colony against the Earth and Fire nations' corrupt leaders," Ukano explains. "I shall see to it that we double cross her at the opportune moment."

"Good. Just don't take too long."

Mai doesn't tell him what she wants with Yu Dao, but if his political mind is still as sharp as it once was (and, she'll admit, that is under question given his current activities) he won't have much trouble guessing what moves she intends to make.

 

ϟ

 

"So when do we get to the part with the sabotage?" Korra whispers for what must be the billionth time. Asami can only just make out her words over the sounds of the workers nearby, who shout to one another as they raise another piece of the mechagiant into the air. They scuttle across the scaffolding around the construction much more confidently than they did when Future Industries first hired them.

"Not yet, Korra," Asami says with a little laugh. She's careful to be quiet; she knows many of these workers have been swayed towards the Earth Empire since taking up their jobs here, and there are always a few guards around ensuring everything is in check. "I've explained this to you. The machine will function perfectly in every way—so perfectly that Kuvira will take it into whatever battle she's planning on. It'll function perfectly until I activate the remote shutdown I've already built into it. It's not that dramatic."

"I think it'll be pretty dramatic when the whole machine stops working in the middle of the fight," Korra grins. She throws her arm around Asami as though Asami's not in the process of making some very precise measurements.

Asami steps away from her work, plants a kiss on Korra's cheek and watches the ensuing flush with amusement.

"I suppose that part _will_ be dramatic, yes."

"And then, once the giant is useless, we can step in and kick some ass with the Avatar!"

Korra is fundamentally good in a way that's been obvious to Asami since the first day she met her—but she's very gung ho. Not tired like most people are after the hundred year war. Korra never fought, per se, just wandered around in a world that was fighting. She's skilled in combat but she was never a soldier, so she doesn't know the weariness of fighting year in and year out for no good reason at all. She's still looking for a cause to throw her energy behind, still sure that she'll be able to find one.

Asami likes being around someone with that kind of energy. It makes her feel young (makes her feel the age she actually _is_ ) for once.

"Speaking of the Avatar," she says quietly, "you should go and see how he's doing."

"Yeah," Korra agrees readily. She's a great admirer of the Avatar. Asami knows Korra modelled her own bending style after someone who fights with all four elements. It's an odd kind of hero worship, though, considering that the last airbender is a pacifist and Korra's rarely happier than she is while flexing her muscles and daring someone to step forward and take a shot.

"I'll follow in a few minutes," Asami says, and turns back to her measurements. She marks the places that the sections of metal will need to be cut, but her mind isn't really on the task anymore.

She finds Aang and Korra laughing together, which is a relief. Still, the voice issuing from Aang's mouth is too deep and rough to be his own.

"We've got Kuruk today," Korra says as Asami approaches.

Kuruk: the last waterbending Avatar. He's made brief appearances before, as part of whatever strange illness is fracturing Aang's personality this way—so she's expecting the cry of "Ummi!" before it comes.

"I'm not Ummi, sorry," she tells Kuruk.

She treads carefully, unsure of whether she's dealing with a young Kuruk, carefree and in love, or an older Kuruk, broken by grief and guilt. Ummi, his fiancée, was taken away from him by what Asami understands to be some kind of dark spirit creature. She won't mention what she knows until today's version of Kuruk lets on that he knows it too.

"'Course not, I see that now," Kuruk corrects himself after hearing Asami's voice, getting a closer look at her. "Sorry. It's the hair. You just reminded me of her for a sec."

"That's alright," she smiles at his earnest apology. "You and Korra seemed to be having an interesting conversation before I arrived."

The attempt to distract Kuruk from the subject of Ummi is a failure, though.

"Do you know where Ummi's at?" the Avatar asks.

Asami sees Korra's face fall, feels the same dismay come over her own features. It's going to be a long afternoon. They can't leave him to his own devices, not when he's as volatile as this, and Asami scolds the part of herself that is tempted to; it's well within her capacity to show Aang (and whichever of his past lives has taken the helm at a given moment) care and compassion. She's busy, but isn't the Avatar as crucial a player in the fate of the world as anyone? Isn't she doing important work against Kuvira and Azula's empires by trying to help him recover?

The thing is, the more of Aang she sees—the more of any Avatar she becomes acquainted with—the more Asami realises that maybe helping him get better and trying to make the Avatar fight another battle are at odds, and only one can happen.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey. I've had a pretty productive writing day today and it's giving me hope that I'll make some real progress with this story again now that I'm on the other side of the hell that has been this past semester. If you're still around to read this then I'm grateful for your patience. I've said all that before but it warrants saying again. 
> 
> The other thing I want to note is that I have no more chapters in reserve now. I wrote the latter half of this one today and I'll be posting as I write from here on. Considering that, I thought I'd ask you guys if you had any comments about what you like; whose perspective you might want to read more of, what kinds of scenes you enjoy, etc. Obviously I've got a plan, but I'd be happy to use your preferences as guidance when I have to make decisions about how exactly to turn that plan into written chapters.

Kuvira almost misses the anniversary of Baatar's death. She realises the date halfway through the day, and is at that point busy sparring with the pair of Dai Li guards she brought back with her from Ba Sing Se after her last visit. One she chose because of his capacity for questioning orders; he has too much useful intelligence to be a good candidate for mindbending, but to leave him behind sowing doubt amongst the Dai Li's ranks in her absence would not do. The other guard she chose for the opposite reason; he will refuse to humour the first guard's contentions, watch him closely and keep him in line.

She's a better fighter than each of them, but together they present somewhat of a challenge, and when the thought of Baatar clouds her head all of a sudden, she loses just enough focus to be tripped awkwardly and fall face first.

"That'll do for today," she says, picking herself up and dusting herself off in the most regal manner possible after eating dirt.

The guards depart without questioning the halving of their session. Kuvira then ventures back to her room, entertains the thought of changing her clothes, and decides simply taming her loosened hair will do for now. She picks up the clip on her dresser, the one Baatar gave her, but she puts it down again in favour of reusing what's been in there all morning so far—one of the ties Azula has given her. Simple, efficient, not at all likely to be flung out and crushed in battle the way Baatar's pin could be.

She pockets his gift instead and takes it with her to a quiet corner of the garden. She settles near a bed where the garden has begun to thin slightly. The royal groundskeepers would never allow any of the gardens to grow genuinely bare, but there's a space between a couple of plants where Kuvira finds little aside from soft, moist soil. She isn't wearing her gloves, so when she buries her hand in it, she feels its coolness on her skin. She doesn't bend the dirt away. This moment is not about efficiency.

And yet it is, because everything is.

Baatar's death feels distant and close behind her at once, in the way often produced by the collusion of time and grief.

Kuvira hasn't visited Baatar's grave since the very first time, a month after his funeral. Suyin organised and paid for the entire affair without inviting her. It had been done so swiftly after his death at Omashu that Kuvira wouldn't have had time to secure Ba Sing Se and leave to attend it anyway—not without risking losing more troops in the same way she'd lost him. Having missed the ceremony, she took her time in returning to see his grave. She'll admit only to herself that she deliberately filled her schedule with too many things around that time. Only to herself, and only now that time has dulled the ache somewhat.

Or is it time's doing? Time, or an overwriting of old events with new ones. Old lovers, too.

"I'm sorry," she tells the little patch of garden bed. They're words she's said before, imagining that he could hear her. She is sorry for the same things as she always has been, but now she adds what she is about to do. What is already in motion.

She lays the clip down in the dirt, in the hole she's dug, amongst the spidery little roots that vein the soil lower down.

"A soldier can't afford to carry all her dead around with her," she says quietly. "No person can. I'm still fighting for our nation—still fighting for the cause you gave your life to—and I'll always be doing it for you, to honour what you sacrificed. But I—" Kuvira falters. She lets a few silent tears fall before starting again. It's been a while since she felt the need to cry over this, but the finality of this moment draws out all her remaining sorrow. "We were always looking to the future. The Empire still requires that of me. I'm sure you understand." She isn't sure, as a matter of fact, but it doesn't matter. The dirt—this dirt that Baatar isn't even buried in, dirt so far from his real grave it could hardly be any farther—can't voice a protest.

She sweeps the topsoil back over the little hole where Baatar's hairpin remains.

She sits on the lawn beside that bed for a while afterward, just mulling over her many thoughts. She dares to say a few things aloud when she finds the right words. Once they are out in the air, they don't burden her so much anymore.

"I know I should feel guilty," she mutters. "But for how long? How can it be practical to expend so much of my energy on a feeling that affords me no progress whatsoever—which in fact _hinders_ progress?" Not everyone has the luxury of stewing in the same unproductive emotions for years, taking that perverse kind of pleasure in the pain of them, as though that pain counts as atonement. _You wouldn't want me to keep feeling useless pain like that_ , she's tempted to say, but she knows it isn't true. Baatar wanted her love—as much of it as he could have. He wanted all the emotion that she had to offer. In life he'd been desperate to ensure she wouldn't forget him when she travelled away to attend to Empire business; she can't imagine him being much different in death.

But he'd known who she was. He'd claimed to love and accept all the parts of her. Promised to. _It's time to make good on that promise_ , she thinks.

"You're gone, and keeping such a heavy weight on my mind does no one any measurable good," she tells the ground. "Goodbye, Baatar."

"I guess Azula's not the only one around here talking to ghosts," Ty Lee sneers from behind her. The Kyoshi warrior is worryingly good at sneaking up on people, and Kuvira has been distracted.

 _A distraction no more_ , she resolves, thinking of the buried pin and all that it takes with it.

"No," she answers Ty Lee, although she owes no explanation, "I know when the dead are gone."

 

ϟ

 

"Be _quiet_ , would you."

"I'm just trying to make conversation!"

"Well stop trying. Do you want me to  come with you and take care of your problem with Su _or not_?" Lin grumbles.

Katara bristles. "I'm starting to think I _don't_."

Still, they keep trudging along. It'll only be a few more minutes of the dusk before they're in total darkness, and Katara's more than exhausted enough not to suggest pressing on despite the lack of light.

Katara thought Suyin was the single most infuriating person she's ever encountered, but her sister is just as bad, albeit in different ways. Lin spares her that patronising, honeyed tone, but she's grumpier than a hermit who's been holed up for twice her lifetime, and she has no qualms about expressing any of her displeasure.

"Let's call it a night," Lin decides, just before Katara can make the declaration herself.

"Oka—"

Katara is left standing by herself as Lin brings earth up over herself in a tent like the ones Toph made when she first joined their group. Lin's rock hut sinks down into the ground, too, until all that's visible is the tip of the roof, protruding just enough that Katara is likely to trip over it at some point.

"I was going to offer to boil some soup," Katara says loudly, "but clearly you'd rather have yours cold."

The dirt doesn't respond, doesn't stir at all. Katara plonks down on the ground a little way away from Lin's makeshift bunker and heats her own soup. Even warmed, the meat in it tastes old and congealed and dry. She chews through the gristle with distaste and tries to pretend that it's really the meal that's leaving such a bad taste in her mouth.

 

ϟ

 

The fighting broke out around midnight, Mai's sources tell her. She stands out on one of the palace's many high balconies and looks seaward, wonders if she can make out smoke on the horizon as the dawn breaks or whether her eyes are just playing tricks on her. Yu Dao is too far away, logic insists. She reasons with her vision until she can see that the wispy greyness catching her attention is only cloud. Perhaps the insanity in this place is contagious after all.

Restless, Mai hacks at the sleeve of her nightrobe with the tip of a little blade, watching the fine stitching come undone, the intricate gold patterns woven in the black silk fall apart. It's an old garment anyway; well on its way to wearing out; disposable. She nicks her wrist with a careless stroke and is taken aback by the twinge that shoots through her. During the war she'd never even have felt such a small cut—too distracted was she with other kinds of pain. Real battle wounds—and under those the constant ache of wanting Zuko and knowing he couldn't possibly mirror that want, not when he'd left her as he had time and time again. She doesn't have those feelings for him anymore. Thinking back on them, they feel childlike.

Mai looks out at the view and what she aches with is not longing but frustration. She told her father to take back the colony from Suyin—not to rush in half-cocked and _fail_ to take it. Double-crossing is a single-use tactic, and if the fight has been raging all night then it hasn't been used correctly. Swiftness is a great attribute for a coup. Mai may not put any stock in Azula's political mind nowadays, but back when they were plotting to overthrow the government of Ba Sing Se... she sighs. They hadn't succeeded, but it hadn't been for lack of an excellent plan. With the clumsy turmoil all around her now it seems such excellent plans are a thing of the past. She's seen drunks stumbling around pottery shops wreak less havoc than all the so-called leaders trying to pull strings in this part of the world.

Mai lets her hand fall to her side and feels the tickle of a blood droplet trickling down her pinkie. It reaches her fingertip and then she doesn't feel it anymore. She looks down and sees a red spot on her left slipper. The robe she may not have cared for, but the slippers are her favourite. Mai grips the little knife tightly in her hand and demands focus from herself. She sends for more food and stronger tea to wake her up. She takes deep breaths of the morning and grapples with the new problem of how to clean up what the New Ozai Society have made a mess of today.

"My lady, the Great Uniter is here to see you," says the servant who returns with her second helping of breakfast.

"Send her in," Mai replies.

Kuvira enters, also in her nightrobe. Her hair has been brushed and tied up already, and there is basic makeup on her face. Mai doesn't care, knows these things only signify power if there is power behind them to be emphasised. Strong lipstick only works if there are strong lips for it to define. She doesn't look as polished as her visitor, but she is not showcasing her power yet anyway.

"Morning," Mai offers a lazy greeting.

"Good morning."

"What do you want?"

Kuvira gestures to the pot full of fresh tea on the table. "May I?" she asks.

Mai shrugs. "Go ahead."

Kuvira pours a cup, inhales the scented steam rising from it before taking a sip, eyes shut in apparent appreciation.

"This is a bold blend," she remarks. "I guess we're all just trying to keep ourselves awake as one political crisis leads into the next."

"What intelligence do you have about the conflict in Yu Dao?" Mai asks, since it's clearly the subject Kuvira is approaching.

"I was going to ask you the same thing. All I know is that the already _unorthodox_ alliance between the New Ozai Society and Suyin seems to have broken up. A few of their barricades have even been felled—none on the outside of the colony, but if the walls between districts are able to be removed there's no reason the outer walls can't be too. Those defending the fortress are divided." There's a look on her face—not a smile, but something Mai interprets are satisfaction.

She wants to try and take the colony now, Mai realises. She wasn't aware that Azula and Kuvira's bizarre invasion machine was close enough to fruition to be used already. In fact, she was fairly certain it wasn't. But a breakdown within the enemy camp _is_ a compelling reason to fast-track. She waits for Kuvira herself to voice these ideas, just in case. The last thing Mai wants is to put plans in the head of a rival.

Sure enough: "It's the perfect time to strike," Kuvira says.

"Right," says Mai, when Kuvira doesn't continue; "Why come to me about it?"

Kuvira smiles, one of those occasional smiles that seem genuine. Mai doesn't buy into it, even though she feels it would be easy to.

"I know you're an intelligent woman, Mai. You have political experience. You know the Fire Nation's military, nobility, and government; I daresay you even have some influence, thanks to that familiarity. Azula doesn't have many true allies, but she trusts you. It would be foolish not to make the most of such an asset. We'll need all hands on deck if we stage the incursion soon."

"If?" Mai asks.

"You're right," Kuvira corrects herself. "When we stage the incursion, soon. See, I knew you had the savvy to be an advisor to us. You won't let us down, will you Mai?" Something in her tone glints like light off a knife. A pretty threat.

"I'll do my best," Mai says, dipping her head just slightly in acquiescence.

"I should go and tell Azula the good news, then," Kuvira leaves her half-drunk tea on the table. "We'll see you in the war room in an hour's time. Tell any contacts you have to spread the word: by this time tomorrow we'll be ready to march."

Mai finishes the rest of her meal fast and gets to work. If it's too late to pre-empt another war, she'll just have to go about winning one.

 

ϟ

 

Ty Lee overhears servants whispering about some kind of battle in Yu Dao. She stretches and meditates and practices some of her more energetic moves in an attempt to dislodge the picture of Katara slogging through a battlefield from her mind, but it doesn't work. If only she could go there, find out whether Katara is even there herself, whether she's okay. The thought of going and seeing for herself soothes her nerves a little. If there was some way to get out of the capital without Kuvira catching her, awakening that traitorous fragment she buried inside Ty Lee—

But then she hears servants whispering about how more Earth Empire troops are on their way. Enough for an invasion. There's an announcement at noon today that no one in the Capital is permitted to miss. It's not a coincidence, the servants postulate; the nation is joining the war in Yu Dao and the Fire Lord is going to declare it so in a couple of hours' time.

Ty Lee's first thought is that if Kuvira is going to Yu Dao, then she'll be bound to take Ty Lee along; Ty Lee will be taken exactly where she wants to go.

Her second thought is that by the time Azula and Kuvira march on the city it'll be too late to help Katara. By then three different sides will be tearing Yu Dao apart—and Ty Lee will be just another weapon wielded by one of them.

She doesn't pack much: just a few knives tucked in the pockets of her cloak, a water bladder, some food and all the gold she can find around her room at the palace. She waits until it's nearly noon and then steps out into the throng of citizens making their way to the courtyard to hear Azula and Kuvira speak. If one of the many moving figures darts off-course and into the tunnels, nobody seems to notice.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me as henrymercury on [tumblr](http://henrymercury.tumblr.com/).


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